No one else can play Twin Peaks’ FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper except Kyle MacLachlan. They are one and the same, synonymous with one another. Okay, okay…maybe an exception can be made for acting legend John Malkovich, who is pretty much allowed to play whoever he wants, whenever he wants.
And today, that is just what Malkovich is doing, as he plays Agent Cooper in a short vignette for his PlayingLynch.com project, wherein Mr. Malkovich will release several videos of himself recreating a popular David Lynch created character throughout the week, all to benefit The David Lynch Foundation. You can watch a trailer for Playing Lynch down below.
So far in this series, Malkovich has played Lynch himself, sitting silently in Twin Peaks’ signature Red Room/Black Lodge. Still to come are John Merrick the Elephant Man, Frank Booth — Dennis Hopper’s sadistic bad guy from Blue Velvet — and even Twin Peak’s beloved Log Lady. No characters from Mulholland Drive or Wild at Heart seem to be included, sadly. I think the universe might bend into itself if we were to see John Malkovich attempt to play Nicolas Cage though, so maybe it’s for the best.
The Cooper vignette finds our beloved Special Agent hanging upside down in his undies, just as we are introduced to him in the second episode of the television series. All of the dialogue that Malkovich as Coop speaks into his dictaphone, directed towards his off-screen secretary Diane, come from various episodes of the series. One line in particular is a true Twin Peaks deep cut — when Coop says never to drink coffee that has ever been near a fish, it’s actually a line not from the show or the movie, but from “Diane…The FBI Tapes of Agent Cooper” audio book released back in the show’s heyday. You can watch the full Dale Cooper scene by clicking here.
What do you think of John Malkovich’s tribute to the weird, wild world of David Lynch? Do you wish he was actually in the new Twin Peaks?