Steven Spielberg Was To Direct Twin Peaks Episode, Wanted It To Be As Weird As Possible

Hollywood legend Steven Spielberg, shortly before he would go on to direct Jurassic Park, Hook and Schindler’s List, was such a big fan of Twin Peaks he wanted and was about to direct the season two premiere of the show. This fantastic piece of trivia was revealed in Brad D thorough interview with Harley Peyton, one of the television show’s producers and screenwriters:

Brad D (BD):  So after the first season, Twin Peaks was just this gigantic pop-art phenomenon.  Just how crazy of a feeling was it to be involved in the middle of it?

Harley Peyton (HP): It’s funny, that was just one of those things, where after the first season a lot of crazy things happened, like me and Mark sitting at Steven Spielberg’s house convincing him to do the opener for the second season.  That was all ready to go.

BD:  Wow! Are you serious?

HP:  Yeah, this is a long story, but my first wife is and was Kate Capshaw’s best friend so I knew Steven pretty well and he was a huge fan of the show – watched it every week, I mean a huge fan.  Because we were friendly we talked about it a lot and he said to me in passing how fun it would be to direct an episode so I went to Mark over the summer and said, “This probably is not a bad way to kick off the second season, right?”

So we sat down with him and had this very long meeting about the second season and Steven just said “I want it to be as weird as possible, it’ll be so much fun” so whether or not he would have even done it – we’ll never really know, but when Mark told David he didn’t even hesitate saying, “No, no, I think I’ll direct the first one.  Maybe he can direct later in the season” – which he obviously didn’t.

So instead of a Spielberg episode, we got the David Lynch directed “May The Giant Be With You” with this memorable opening scene:

The entire, two-part interview with Harley Peyton is a must-read over at Brad D Studios.