Sheryl Lynn Lee (born April 22, 1967) is a German-born American film, stage, and television actress. After studying acting in college, Lee relocated to Seattle, Washington to work in theater, where she was cast by David Lynch as Laura Palmer and Maddy Ferguson on the 1990 television series Twin Peaks and in the 1992 film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. After completing Twin Peaks, she returned to theater, appearing in the title role of Salome on Broadway opposite Al Pacino. Her film roles include Astrid Kirchherr in Backbeat (1994), as well as a lead role in the drama Mother Night (1996), the role of Katrina in John Carpenter's Vampires (1998) and the part of April in Winter's Bone (2010). She has had recurring roles on such television series as One Tree Hill (2005–06) and Dirty Sexy Money (2007–2009), and later reprised her role of Laura Palmer in the Showtime revival of Twin Peaks in 2017. Early life Lee was born in Augsburg, Bavaria, West Germany to an artist mother and architect father; the first of three children. She grew up in Boulder, Colorado, United States, where she was a graduate of Fairview High School (class of 1985). After graduating, Lee moved to Pasadena, California where she studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and later attended the North Carolina School of the Arts, the National Theatre Conservatory in Denver, and the University of Colorado. After several years of studying, Lee moved to Seattle, Washington where she acted in several stage plays and appeared in several commercials. She studied with theater director Mark Jenkins at the now-defunct Empty Space Theater in Seattle. Career 1986—1993: Career beginnings and Twin Peaks Lee's first television role was as the dead Laura Palmer in the television series Twin Peaks. To save on money, creator David Lynch intended to cast a local girl from Seattle "just to play a dead girl". That local girl ended up being Sheryl Lee. Lynch asked her to audition for him after seeing a publicity photo of her in Seattle from one of the plays she was starring in at the time. "But no one — not Mark, me, anyone — had any idea that she could act, or that she was going to be so powerful just being dead." The image of Lee wrapped in plastic as well as her homecoming queen photograph became one of the show's