Tabloids landed Lara Flynn Boyle 'Mother Couch' role

Lara Flynn Boyle said Niclas Larsen, director of her new movie Mother, Couch, in theaters Friday, had wanted to cast her since reading about her in the tabloids as a child in his mother's beauty shop.

Boyle, 56, appeared frequently in magazines in the '90s, photographed at Hollywood events or dating other celebrities.

"He would read tabloid articles, whatever magazines were there at the beauty shop," Boyle told UPI in a recent phone interview. "When he started writing this beautiful screenplay from the book, he always envisioned me."

Larssen adapted Swedish author Jerker Virdborg's Mamma i Soffa. In the film, Ellen Burstyn plays a mother who accompanies her son, David (Ewan McGregor), to a meeting at a furniture store.

Mother sits on a couch and never gets up for the rest of the movie. David eventually has to call his siblings for help, and Boyle plays his sister, Linda.

Boyle said she accepted that tabloid attention came with her job of acting in film and television. Still, she said, she never expected tabloids to land her a role.

"You cannot make this good stuff up," Boyle said. "I've never been anyone's favorite. I'm not really the girl next door so this is just shocking that people are actually liking me."

Echoes of David Lynch in 'Mother, Couch'

Dealing with a mother who simply will not stand up and leave becomes a surreal comic drama in Mother, Couch. Boyle compared it favorably to another surreal project in her career, the David Lynch TV show Twin Peaks.

"The great comparison is when I was a part of Twin Peaks, I was naive and ignorance is bliss," Boyle said. "You don't know how things are going to turn out."

Boyle said her philosophy is to be truthful in her performance. She did not fully understand the final product to which she was contributing until she saw the finished film.

"Shooting the pilot of Twin Peaks we had no idea, and in Mother, Couch we had no idea," Boyle said. "I just knew that Niclas got it and let's just follow him."

Now, Boyle believes Mother sitting on the couch is a metaphor for the malaise every human deals with.

"Don't we all do that?" Boyle said. "When you're stuck, you're just stuck. You're stuck on that damn couch."

Larsen also had a specific image in mind for Linda. Boyle dyed her hair blonde and smoked herbal cigarettes to give Larsen what he wanted.

"I fried my skull," she said. "It was like the dirty superhero."

Missing the 'Twin Peaks' revival and getting cut out of 'Ferris Bueller'

As pivotal as Twin Peaks remains in Boyle's career, she was unavailable when Lynch made Twin Peaks: The Return in 2017. The omission of Boyle's character, Donna Hayward, led to fan speculation, which Lynch would not answer.

Boyle explained the reason she did not participate was simple.

"It didn't work out with my schedule," Boyle said. "I had to go do something else."

After the '90s Twin Peaks, she was in movies like Wayne's World, The Temp and Threesome before spending seven seasons on The Practice, with more movies in between seasons.

Boyle said that though she has no regrets and values all her projects, especially the fan favorites, her personal favorites are more obscure. Boyle said she considers her two films with director Alan Rudolph, Equinox and Afterglow, "phenomenal movies."

Boyle was also pleased fans still highly regard her femme fatale turn in 1993's Red Rock West, playing opposite Nicolas Cage for director John Dahl.

"That was a fun movie to make," Boyle said. "That definitely stands the test of time.

Boyle also played the mother of a kidnapped baby in the comedy Baby's Day Out. Though not a hit in 1994, the role was a makeup from producer John Hughes, who had cut Boyle out of his film Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

"He brought me all my little scenes that were cut out from Ferris Bueller and we watched them together," she said.

Though the deleted scenes have never been released, Boyle said she played a classmate of Ferris's (Matthew Broderick) sister (Jennifer Grey).

"We did scenes in a locker room," she said. "There were scenes that I was just, of course, missing Ferris Bueller."

The toughest critics of Baby's Day Out might have been the babies themselves. Boyle said she struggled with a set of twins alternating takes playing a single infant character.

"Those babies hated me," Boyle said, laughing. "They would give me those twins and they would cry and cry."

The ups and downs of Hollywood

Mother, Couch is one of only four credits for Boyle in the last ten years. She said slow periods, like the negative tabloid press of her early career, don't get her down.

"There is no easy ride," Boyle said. "That's why Hollywood is so beautiful."

Boyle said that though Larsen's pursuit of her for a role in Mother, Couch was flattering, he remains an outlier in the industry. Boyle expects to continue facing adversity in her career, though she has some upcoming projects she cannot yet announce.

"When you get over one hurdle, there are many more hurdles to get over," she said. "That's why I'm still playing the game, because if everyone just liked me, that would be quite boring."

Boyle said she has always had a thick skin, which she describes as a "hard shell." But, her passion for the craft fuels her pursuit.

"You cannot hide from the camera," Boyle said. "I'm in love with not being able to get away with anything."