‘Twin Peaks’ Star Regrets Leaving Show: Joan Chen Speaks Out

Twin Peaks star Joan Chen is looking back at her exit and regrets how it all went down. The actress portrayed Twin Peaks mill owner Jocelyn “Josie” Pickard during the horror drama’s original run on ABC in the early ’90s. In Season 2, Episode 16, Josie died after a standoff with Kyle MacLachlan’s Dale Cooper. The series shocked fans by having her soul appearing in a wooden drawer knob at the Great Northern Hotel in the final seconds of the episode, with her trying to get out, only for her face to get frozen in the wooden knob.

It was definitely one of the most insane moments of any television show and most unpredictable, but there’s a reason why it happened. Chen told IndieWire that she wanted to leave the show because she wanted to do a film called Turtle Beach, and she “loved the novel, talking about Vietnamese and Chinese refugees’ life.” She continued, “And there was a character I really wanted to play. And also, I sort of preferred the big screen back then. I don’t know why, but I felt like I wanted to leave the show.”

Unfortunately, Turtle Beach ended up bombing in 1992, while Twin Peaks still remains a pop culture phenomenon to this day. “They wrote me out and put me in a drawer knob, and later on, I was regretful because Turtle Beach came out to be a very uninspired film,” Chen explained. “Now even decades later, Twin Peaks is this iconic TV show that opened a new possibility to make TV shows. It was a revolutionary show, and because of that regret, I was like, ‘Oh, I could just go back. I want to go back.’”

Joan Chen went on to share that when she heard about the third season, dubbed Twin Peaks: The Return , she “wanted to go back, and I regret it very much. I wanted to write a letter to David to sort of kindle him some imagination and possibility, but obviously, it didn’t work.” Considering how the series left Josie, it would take quite a lot of imagination to bring her back. While Chen did appear in archival footage, it just wasn’t Josie’s time to get her soul back, but Chen understands and even watched the third season on Showtime.

“If she could get out of the drawer knob and serve some purpose for the show, then I would love it,” Chen said. “I knew there was no place for Josie in there.” Whether or not more Twin Peaks could be on the way in the future is unknown, but it doesn’t sound like Chen is counting out a return just yet. In the meantime, Twin Peaks is streaming on Paramount+.