Why David Duchovny Thought Wasn’t Pretty Enough to Return to ‘Twin Peaks’

It’s been almost a decade since we last checked in on the strange little town of Twin Peaks, when Showtime rolled out Twin Peaks: The Return back in 2017. However, since the passing of its mastermind, David Lynch, in January 2025, former denizens of the town have been sharing memories and revisiting their time on set.

On a recent episode of his podcast Fail Better, David Duchovny reunited with Kyle MacLachlan to talk about life inside Lynch’s world — and why Duchovny was surprisingly down on himself when it came to his looks.

Showtime Network / Courtesy: Everett Collection

Currently starring on the Prime Video series Malice, Duchovny reflected on one of his earliest breakout roles on Twin Peaks, where he played trans FBI agent Denise Bryson — a character he first brought to life in the early ’90s and later reprised for the third season. He admitted that slipping back into Denise after all those years stirred up more self-criticism than he expected, especially when he compared how he looked then to how he looks now.

“When I went back to do the reboot, my opinion of David, which I think is very similar to yours, is that he’s sui generis is the Latin phrase, he’s ‘of himself.’ I can’t tell his influences. I can’t imagine anybody being influenced by him. You either take him whole or you don’t. You can’t chew him up,” said the former X-Files star. “I recognized that early on when I saw his work. And I wanted very badly for him to like me when I came back in 2015.”

“I remember I was doing the makeup and the hair for Denise, and I wasn’t pleased with the way I had aged. How many years was it? It was 25 years,” laughed the actor.

New Line Cinemas /Courtesy Everett Collection

So, I was looking at myself in the mirror and I was like, ‘You know what? I got to find another way because this ain’t working.'” recalled Duchovny. “It wasn’t working for me. So I said to David when I got out on set… ‘Do you mind if I perch on the front of the desk and we have the scene like that? Because my legs were still good and I wanted to use my legs.”

“David said, ‘That would make me very uncomfortable.’ I was like, ‘F**k, he doesn’t like me.'”

MacLachlan explained that the helmer was a complex genius with a vision not everyone can understand: “David, you know, what he creates is to be experienced, not necessarily understood intellectually. At least some level of that. But I think the real impact is in just the journey, and immersing yourself in the journey and in that world.”