Madchen Amick, "Twin Peaks'" Shelly, may be the first blonde since Farrah "The Burning Bed" Fawcett to get extended mileage out of playing the battered wife. But how much can one girl take?
Amick says she's had it with victim roles. She will, however, show up again as white trash princess Shelly in the August release of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, and though she attempted to convince the writers to strengthen her character's resolve, "they just didn't go for it," she says now. But battling "cat-like prehistoric vampires" in Stephen King's Sleepwalkers is her farewell to victim roles, Amick insists. "Even there, I don't just lay back and take it. I do something; I take action." With her current TV series "The Fifth Corner," she's turning a new leaf. "You can't really figure out who I am at all in this. One minute my character's vulnerable, and the next she's holding a gun on somebody. It's the kind of role that keeps you guessing. That's what I like." Sounds like maybe her character's a little scary. "I'll tell you what's scary," she says. "People used to come up to me on the street and ask me where Leo or Bobby were. Some of them really had no idea it was all fiction...That's scary."