The slow trickle of tidbits about the new season of cult series Twin Peaks, a reboot many once considered an impossible damn-good-cherry-pie-in-the-sky dream, has been agonizing. One by one, various actors have confirmed that they’ll return or appear in the 18-episode run in new roles. (Others, in their own tragic ways, have confirmed that they will not.) But at long last, that slow trickle has exploded into a mighty flood: Showtime sent out a press release this afternoon containing the full and official cast list for the new season of Twin Peaks. It is full of surprises, the biggest surprise being that it is 217 (as in 17 more than 200) people long.
The massive ensemble cast list doesn’t specifically name anyone’s role, perhaps as a sort of safeguard against potential spoilers, but it does bust open some pretty huge revelations. We’ve posted the full list below along with Showtime’s system of marking returning cast members with an asterisk, but let’s momentarily consider some of the more exciting/shocking additions.
International screen treasure Monica Bellucci, sitcom fixture Jim Belushi, living performance art Michael Cera, Ghostbuster turned God’s Not Dead 2 cast member Ernie Hudson, WHAMMY! originator David Koechner, Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor, Robert Forster, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tim Roth, and singer Sharon Van Etten will all appear on the show in some capacity. The mind reels to even imagine what Altmanesque squadron of characters could possibly sustain this sprawling cast list, but creators David Lynch and Mark Frost clearly found a way to make it work, because the press release also confirmed that principal photography for the new season has been completed. The wait until the 2017 debut is going to be long and difficult, but at least all the actors on this list can look forward to being needled about the series in every interview they conduct between now and then!
