Eraserhead started her long, close association with Lynch, even though her scenes were cut from the film. Instead, she played key roles behind the camera, which turned into an unlikely career for the academically trained thesp, who notably served as Eraserhead cinematographer Frederick Elmes’ focus puller on Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan.
Coulson also happened to be married to Jack Nance, the lead on Eraserhead, but that marriage would not last. Perhaps ill-advisedly, Green (who played the Magician in Mulholland Drive) spends a lot of time on Coulson’s hippy early days in the 1960s, perhaps not realizing the extent to which he alienates the children of Vietnam vets and Vietnamese “Boat People” refugees, but the Twin Peaks sequences are redemptive.
There is indeed extensive footage of Lynch, Kyle MacLachlan, and Michael Horse. The latter might not have had the most PR at the height of the show’s success, his character had a special rapport with the Log Lady, so his presence is quite fitting. However, the three cast-members who graced the cover of Rolling Stone are absent and unaccounted for.
Of course, Nance (Pete Martell in Twin Peaks) only appears in archival footage, since he passed away in 1996. Green also documented his life in the film I Don’t Know Jack. Regardless, colleagues and fans all explain how Coulson was the glue that held the Twin Peaks community together during the wilderness years. Consequently, even casual fans will get choked up when the second unit crew describes Coulson’s grit and grace filming her scenes for the revival series, shortly before her death.
