It's not easy being a corpse. Just ask Sheryl Lee, who plays the murdered Laura Palmer on "Twin Peaks."
"It's quite fascinating, believe me," she said. "That opening scene, when they find me washed up on the beach, took a full day of shooting. It was quite cold, and I'm laying there wrapped up in plastic and taped all around so I can't even move."When all of a sudden you realize that you can't move, you want to."
"Twin Peaks," sometimes described as a gothic soap opera, is without a doubt the most talked-about show of the year. A number of mysteries are swirling in the small, Northwestern town, but at the center of the controversy is one question: Who killed Laura Palmer?
Lee portrayed Palmer's corpse in a number of scenes, including an autopsy when she had a drill held to her head and a fight resulted in a medical examiner landing on top of her.
Lee had to divorce herself from her surroundings to play the murdered girl.
"I kind of had to go into a deep relaxation to where I didn't even think about what was going on," she said. "I just had to slow down and let myself go into a sort of trance."
Although the ratings have been only fair, fan response to the show has reached cult proportions. There are "Twin Peaks" parties across the country, where fans - sometimes dressed as their favorite characters - gather to watch the show. Videotaped copies have been going for as much as $20 in some areas, while other copies are Federal Expressed to friends across country who missed the show.
All of which came as quite a surprise to 23-year-old Lee, who was plucked from local theater in Seattle for her first television role.
"I am blown away by all of this," she said. "I had no idea it was going to be like this. People come up to me all the time, but it's never, `Oh, you're Sheryl Lee.' It's `Oh my gosh, you're Laura Palmer."'
The strangeness of "Twin Peaks" can be laid at the feet of director David Lynch, who not only wrote and directed the first two episodes but is a producer as well. Lynch has acquired a reputation for weirdness in the films "The Elephant Man," "Eraserhead" and "Blue Velvet."
"When my sister found I was working with him, she went out and rented `Eraserhead,"' Lee said. "She called me up and said, `Are you OK? I am so worried about you working with that man.'
"But it's great. He's wonderful to work with. He's so kind and so warm and so brilliantly creative. I learn every time I work with him.
"I would have been a corpse through all seven episodes just to work with him."
Despite the fact that Laura was already dead when she was introduced to the audience, the character has continued to develop. (If that doesn't tell you how weird this show is, nothing will.) Viewers have learned various unsavory facts about Twin Peaks' homecoming queen, from her cocaine addiction to her participation in pornography to her promiscuity.
"I'm watching it myself every week and finding out things I didn't know," Lee said. "I'd read the scripts, but sometimes things change between when you see the script and when it gets filmed."
One of the biggest surprises came when she learned she'd be returning to the series as Laura's cousin Madeleine. "When we shot the pilot, a year ago in February, I didn't know that I was going to be coming back as Maddie," Lee said. "I was thrilled."
Not that it was easy to play another character.
"Here I am playing my cousin who goes to my own funeral," she said. "I was having very, very bizarre dreams about that."
And, not surprisingly, Madeleine isn't the sweet innocent girl she appeared to be at first.
"You're right on the money there," Lee said. "Everybody has secrets."
In addition to its cast of strange characters - the Log Lady, drapery obsessed, eye-patched Nadine Hurly, quirky FBI Agent Cooper - "Twin Peaks" is also full of strange sight gags. Everything from the fish in the percolator to the the figurine with the eye patch to the deer's head on the table.
"It's really funny," she said. "You find yourself getting so into it that you're wondering if all those things are clues. And nine out of ten of them are."
She mentions Agent Cooper's bizarre dream sequence, which featured a psychic dwarf and Lee as a Laura Palmer look-alike.
"There were a lot of clues in that," Lee said. "I was playing Laura's cousin. The bird was flying in the background. All kinds of things."
Some viewers have been frustrated by the slow pace of the show. Many tuned in to the two-hour pilot and expected the murder to be solved by the end of the evening.
"We're all so programmed to look for results at the end of two hours," Lee said. "This is a whole new adjustment for us."
Theories abound about who killed Laura Palmer. One popular guess is that Laura isn't really dead - she killed her cousin, Madeleine, and took her place.
"Yes, that does make sense. But there are some things that are being overlooked," Lee said cryptically.
What about Wednesday's final episode?
"You will find out a lot of stuff," she said. "But there are also going to be many, many cliffhangers."
Will there be a resolution to the murder mystery?
"I did read the script for episode 7, but, like I said, scripts have a way of changing. As far as I know, I think they have solved the murder."
Have you told anyone who did it?
"No one. Absolutely no one."
OK. But can you tell us who killed Laura Palmer?
"Just keep watching."
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DECISION TODAY: Despite all the attention it has been receiving, the fate of "Twin Peaks" has not yet been revealed.
ABC is scheduled to release its fall schedule late Monday, which is when we'll find out if "Peaks" will return in the fall.
The outlook appears hopeful. The ratings slide has leveled out, and the audience that is watching is one advertisers pay to reach.
Not to mention the huge amount of publicity it has received.
Even ABC Entertainment President Robert Iger said, "`Twin Peaks' has performed beyond expectations, both from a ratings standpoint and the general attention it's received and the positive effect it's had on our network and on the business in general. All of that makes it a serious contender for next season."
However, even if ABC turns thumbs down, that may not be the end of the show. There are unconfirmed reports that Fox is interested in picking "Peaks" up if ABC drops it.