Harry Goaz

Harry Goaz’s wide-eyed delivery gives Deputy Andy Brennan the air of someone hoping that goodwill will help him through the job. In Twin Peaks (1990), the awkwardness and weak will make him useful for comedy, but the earnestness gives us a reason to care. We were touched by Andy because Goaz makes him seem so sincere even when he is bumbling. That ordinary human response matters in a series which makes soap-opera jealousy funny, frightening and unexpectedly sad.

The move to Eerie, Indiana (1991), where he played Sgt. Knight, kept him in paranormal television after his breakthrough. His usefulness in such company is easy to understand: an earnest supporting player gives us someone recognisable when the surroundings become strange. He played Guard Casey in Steven Soderbergh’s The Underneath (1995), among the independent-film supporting parts that followed. The credits broadened, but Andy remained the role that defined him, with relatively few leading parts to challenge that association.

The Underneath is a useful caution against recommending a film simply because a familiar face appears in it. We found Soderbergh’s film intelligently cut and handsomely lit, yet cold, with a central character who gives it little to explore. Goaz’s supporting part is no reason to lay that failure at his door, or to set the reservation aside. David Lynch’s Twin Peaks gives us much firmer grounds for appreciating him: its ensemble has room for the comic relief and sincere everyman presence he supplies.

The return to Andy in Twin Peaks (2017) reinforced how much of his reputation rests on this one character. The Texas accent and wide-eyed sincerity are useful tools, although they tell us little about how he might carry a film on his own. That narrow evidence is worth acknowledging, especially when the temptation is to turn affection for Andy into praise for every credit. Start with the original Twin Peaks, and allow for the stretches when the series’ patience becomes drift.