So unlike his movies, David Lynch’s aw-shucks charm was its own work of art

The man at the hotel bar slid off his stool and turned, offering his hand.

“I’m David Lynch. Pleased to meet you.”

We were close enough that I could smell the pomade coming off that immaculate pompadour. Lavender? Nah. Can’t be ... can it? You’d figure Lynch to be old school when it comes to grooming products.

I’d just finished having lunch with Richard Farnsworth, the unlikely star of the most unlikely David Lynch movie, “The Straight Story,” a G-rated gem about an old-timer who, after hearing that his estranged brother is dying, hops on a tractor lawnmower to see him one last time. It was released by Disney, an implausible partner for a filmmaker known for haunting, surrealistic and often deeply disturbing movies. No one ever thought of Mickey Mouse when hearing the cinematic classification “Lynchian.”

“Human beings are capable of doing many types of things, so I don’t think this is surprising at all,” Lynch told me as we started talking about the film.

Lynch, whose family announced his death at age 78 on Thursday, lived that ethos. Whenever I spoke with him, he was unfailingly polite, the embodiment of a Boy Scout upbringing that he’d sometimes embrace, maybe to mess with people, maybe not. When promoting his 1990 movie “Wild at Heart,” his bio simply read: “Eagle Scout. Missoula, Montana.” This was the man who went to the Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank every afternoon for years, ordering a chocolate milkshake and coffee, hoping that the caffeine and sugar cocktail would inspire an idea or two.

You’d have to imagine that the thoughts and doodles Lynch put down on napkins there ran counter to his aw-shucks public persona. Did he conjure the monstrous man we see behind the Winkie’s Diner at “Mulholland Drive” while sitting at Bob’s? Or the violent deviant Frank Booth who terrorizes Isabella Rossellini in “Blue Velvet”? Who’s to say? Certainly not Lynch, who was loath to explain the meaning behind his often abstract films, preferring that his audience arrive at its own conclusions.

When asked what “Mulholland Drive,” perhaps the most insightful movie ever made about the dark underside of the Hollywood dream, was about, Lynch famously told one reporter: “It’s about two hours.”

Still, I’d never pass up the opportunity to talk with him. His reticence was a work of art in itself. The last time we spoke came nearly 20 years ago when I was invited to meet him at his three-house compound in the Hollywood Hills, ostensibly to discuss a lecture he was giving that night at USC: “Consciousness, Creativity and the Brain.”

Lynch had recently started the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace. The initial idea had been to create a program to help troubled youth through meditation. That wasn’t enough for Lynch. He pivoted toward raising $7 billion to fund seven universities of world peace in seven countries. One of his colleagues labeled the goal as a “very Lynchian number.’’

“Well, $7 billion sounds like a lot, but when the military spends $7 billion, we don’t blink an eye,” Lynch answered. “Spending $7 billion for consciousness-based education and world peace would be spending it to let human beings realize their full potential, and it would be spending money to bring real peace on earth. Not just an absence of war, but real peace.”

Movies

David Lynch, surrealist filmmaker known for ‘Twin Peaks’ and ‘Blue Velvet,’ dead at 78

David Lynch, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker who brought surrealist storytelling to the mainstream via ‘Twin Peaks’ and ‘Mulholland Drive,’ has died. He was 78.

Jan. 16, 2025

Lynch was wearing his uniform of the period — worn khakis, white button-down shirt, black blazer. We had coffee, and, yes, it was a damn fine cup. And he smoked cigarettes throughout, but not before first asking if I minded. Last year, revealing he had been diagnosed with emphysema in 2020, Lynch said he had finally stopped smoking more than two years earlier.

When we spoke, Lynch had just finished filming “Inland Empire,” his first movie since “Mulholland Drive,” and I was desperate for details. Here’s how that line of inquiry went.

Q: You’ve filmed your next movie.
A: Yes.

Q: “Inland Empire.” Does it take place in San Bernardino County?
A: We did film some out there. It’s not really about that area, though.

Q: Yeah, your assistant told me that all you’d tell me is that it’s about “a woman in trouble.”
A: She is in trouble, yes.

Q: Laura Dern?
A: Yes.

Q: Do you hope to have it in theaters next year?
A: I hope to.

At this point, Lynch’s assistant, who had been standing nearby, approached with more coffee. “That’s the most I’ve heard him say about the movie in a long time,” he said. Lynch smiled.

“Inland Empire” came out the following year. Outside of his core group of devotees, audiences didn’t know what to make of its trippy horror, absurdist humor and often frustrating digressions. Like much of his work, it has gained in reputation over the years.

It was also the last movie Lynch ever made.

Not that he stopped creating. Lynch directed and co-wrote all 18 episodes of the 2017 continuation of “Twin Peaks,” which was often as astonishing as anything he ever made. In later years, he turned his focus to painting and music, though he continued to fish for inspiration that might translate to film. He was open to anything, as ideas, he once said, are “the No. 1 best thing going.”

“You do the action, not for the fruit of the action but for the enjoyment of the action, and the fruit is gonna be what it’s gonna be,” Lynch told me. “But how many people really enjoy the doing? It’s so beautiful.”