Lara Flynn Boyle

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Actress Lara Flynn Boyle has David Lynch to thank for becoming so famous at such a young age. She was barely 20 when she made her series-TV bow on Twin Peaks in the role of Donna Hayward, best friend of the ill-fated Laura Palmer. After the debut of Twin Peaks in 1990, Boyle did steady work in both films and television. Some of her more notable ventures included John Dahl's Red Rock West (1993), a neo-noir in which she played a scheming femme fatale; Threesome (1994), which cast her as a college student whose unique boarding situation provides the basis for oodles of hormonal adventures with her two male roommates; Afterglow (1997), a romantic drama in which Boyle starred as an unhappy wife; and Todd Solondz's Happiness (1998), a very, very black comedy that cast the actress as an irredeemably bitchy celebrity writer. On television, Boyle nabbed one of her most prominent roles to date when she was cast as a lawyer in the acclaimed series The Practice in 1997. ~ Hal Erickson Full Biography »