PIPER LAURIE got an Emmy nomination last season for her portrayal of the scheming Catherine Martell on that surrealistic serial TWIN PEAKS. But this seasn, she should get a backstage Emmy for playing Catherine playing Japanese businessman Sushi Tajimura. Laurie, dressed in drag with a bra to push down her breasts, had her face made up with latex inserts for four hours each day, filed her nails to the quick, adopted a mustache and convinced cast and crew she was a plump quirky character actor named Fumio Yamaguichi.
Creators DAVID LYNCH and MARK FROST encouraged the deception by taking Laurie's name off the credits, and she plunged into the talk. She carried Japanese magazines wherever she went, and enlisted Derick Shimatsu, brother of the show publicist Paula Shimatsu, as 'Yamaguichi's assistant. Derick scrawled notes on the script in Japanese and served as her interpreter as she asked directors to painstakingly repeat every stage direction.
THE BADDER, THE BETTER
To find her voice, Laurie studied Rashomon. And Laurie had eightyish Reverend Susumu Yoshida of Gardena, California, read the lines in his halting English into a tape recorder for Laurie to study. The only problem was, Yoshida kept trying to perfect his pronunciation, and Piper kept asking him to stop trying to improve his English accent- a perfect Lynch scene.
Laurie said that she purposely adopted an arrogant, off-putting attitude, grunting imperiously to her assistants, which scared away the rest of the cast members. Until he got the script, just after the Emmys, in which Catherine reveals herself to her husband, JACK NANCE [who plays Pete Martell] was fooled. "I heard Jack tell the producers, 'Boy, is that guy weird!'" laughs Laurie.