Death In Entertainment
Kyle Ploof, Alejandro Dowling and Ben Kissel discuss Hollywood murders, true crime, on-set deaths and more!
Death In Entertainment
David Lynch Part I: The Mystery of Life (Episode 152)
Imagine growing up with a mother who banned coloring books to encourage creativity. In our latest episode, we embark on an eccentric journey into the life of the legendary filmmaker David Lynch, whose unique experiences shaped a mind capable of crafting surreal and unforgettable stories. From his playful childhood in Montana, where mud holes and moths sparked lifelong fascinations, to his profound realization that art could be a career, we explore what ignited his creative spirit.
Transitioning through Lynch's life, we paint a vivid picture of his time in Philadelphia, where he embraced chaos and fear, fueling his concept of the "art life." You'll hear how his environment, from gritty streets to Los Angeles sunshine, played a pivotal role in his artistic development. We navigate the rollercoaster of Lynch's career, capturing his breakthrough with "Eraserhead" and his iconic television debut with "Twin Peaks," a show that forever changed the landscape of TV drama.
Finally, we take a nostalgic look at the cultural phenomenon of "Twin Peaks," diving into the serendipitous creation of the sinister character Bob and the impact it had on actor Frank Silva's life. Listen as we reflect on the vibrant fandom that emerged around the show and the bittersweet stories of its cast and crew. Don't miss our lighthearted musings on what a Lynch-directed sitcom might look like, as we tease more mysteries and stories that lie ahead in future episodes.
Death in Entertainment is hosted by Kyle Ploof, Alejandro Dowling and Ben Kissel.
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Fade. In Exterior highway Night. We see a narrow stretch of road as it unfurls into the darkness ahead. The center lines are illuminated by a pair of off-screen headlights. As we pass by, they blur into a river of yellow paint. The only sound is the unsettling hum of the wind. The road goes on and on at rapidly increasing speed until it abruptly morphs into a podcast studio with black curtains when three men are recording an episode on the life of David Lynch. In fact, it's the same episode you're listening to right now. Enter the man from another place. He snaps his fingers as he strolls over to the microphone and says Welcome to Deathine Entertainment.
Speaker 2:Please extinguish your cigarette, pour a cup of hot coffee and cut a big slice of cherry pie. The show is about to begin.
Speaker 3:Live from Los Angeles 911,. What is your emergency here in Hollywood now? Two counts of murder, injury and death.
Speaker 5:Oh my God, shocking new details. That has stunned the entertainment world.
Speaker 2:This makes me a little nervous. The hair stood up on my arms, justocking new details that has stunned the entertainment world. This makes me a little nervous. The hair stood up on my arms Just like in the movies. What do you call this thing anyway?
Speaker 6:Death In entertainment. Greetings Ditto Universe. Hi, how are you? Hope your Super Bowl Sunday was good and you didn't lose too much money. What's going on? Everybody? My name's Kyle Plouffe. I'm Alejandro.
Speaker 5:Dowling. I'm Ben Kissel and you can find us on Patreon at patreoncom. Slash diebud. Ok, bud, the show that I do with Kyle and Jerry Aquino and the Die Podcast have joined forces $10 a month. You can watch every show live. Ooh yeah.
Speaker 1:It's like a super group. Yeah, five shows a week.
Speaker 5:Yes, indeed, we're the traveling Wilburys, but instead of Wilburys it was Dingleberries.
Speaker 6:Hey, hello, won'tberries.
Speaker 1:Okay, and speaking of Dingleberries, david Lynch was not one. Yes.
Speaker 5:Very good Today we're discussing David Lynch. Oh one, yes, very good. Today we're discussing David Lynch. Oh my God. The life, the death, the unbelievable man that was.
Speaker 1:Yes, unbelievable career.
Speaker 6:Yes, well, life, death, everything. We have to warn you, guys, if this is the first time you're listening to us, we are a true crime comedy podcast, so we will be laughing about dark subjects at rate and don't take it personal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and david lynch, I think, would appreciate that. I think he would.
Speaker 5:We got a few chuckles in he had a great sense of humor. I watched a youtube clip of him watching ace ventura, aka jim carrey, getting birthed out of the hippo's asshole or the rhinoceros rhinoceros asshole, and he watches the whole clip and he's like fantastic, he was the best you know what's crazy is?
Speaker 1:I bought the novelization of that movie when I was a kid from the book it order and when that scene, when I got to that scene in the book, he came out of his mouth instead of the butt what? And I was so pissed off.
Speaker 6:There's a novelization of Ace Ventura, Pet Detective 2.
Speaker 1:Yes, when nature calls. Oh, I have it.
Speaker 5:That's incredible. Yeah, that's actually incredible.
Speaker 6:Wow, I had no idea. See, we're learning here.
Speaker 1:But it was censored so it was bullshit.
Speaker 5:Yes, wow, we are here to laugh, we, let's go.
Speaker 1:And this podcast is not censored, so buckle up as we fade in to the life of David Lynch, thank you. So David Lynch was born in Missoula, montana, beautiful state Not too populated.
Speaker 5:Definitely not.
Speaker 1:His dad was a forestry research scientist for the Department of Agriculture. His name was Donald, like the duck.
Speaker 6:Like the Sutherland.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and his mom, edwina, was nicknamed Sunny, as in the sunshine Not, you know, sunny from Godfather.
Speaker 6:Yes.
Speaker 5:I was thinking Sunny from the WWE, who was currently incarcerated for killing someone while driving drunk. Yes, miss Sitch.
Speaker 1:Definitely not that one. So Sonny was an English tutor and David had two younger siblings, eventually named John and Martha. So this family moved around a lot. After Montana they moved to Sandpoint, Idaho, another rural area, and one of David Lynch's fondest memories when he was little was sitting around with his buddy Dickie Smith. Oh, good old Dickie Smith.
Speaker 5:We all had a Dickie Smith in our life.
Speaker 1:And they would sit in a mud hole that his mom dug out for them. On hot days, you better not be sitting out in that mud hole with Dickie Smith. No, she wanted them to sit there. She dug it, yeah. And then she would. Not only did she dig it, but she also dug it. Dig it as in liked it, yeah. And she brought them a hose and would fill it like it's a swimming pool.
Speaker 5:I love this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and David Lynch would just sit there and play with the mud and the clay, and this is what started his obsession with textures.
Speaker 5:Interesting, yeah, very tactile learning.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm. And then they moved to Washington State in the Pacific Northwest, and this might come up with one of his most famous creations later this area. So his mom was wise to his talent that he was a little different. So she banned coloring books because they were too restrictive. Oh, Interesting you got to color in the lines, yeah, and why have lines at all? Oh?
Speaker 5:Well, that's kind of forming the image.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she took it even further.
Speaker 5:Kind of makes it so you know you're painting an elephant or something Right, as opposed to the blank page.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I get it If he was just weird from day one.
Speaker 6:She sounds weird.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and he's like drawing pictures of like elephant testicles and devil Creative kid yeah, so there's a flip side to this, also because he went on to hate studying in school. School just wasn't for him. He didn't like being in that box.
Speaker 5:I could imagine. He's such a creative, obviously very intelligent and just all the monotony of the US education system. He was probably bored off his ass, yeah.
Speaker 1:Could you imagine David Lynch sitting quietly in US history class? Not at all, I don't think so, no way. So one of his schoolmates told him that his dad was a painter for a living. Like that's how he got the bread for his family.
Speaker 5:Right.
Speaker 1:And this blew David's mind because he's like, wow, I want to do that. Yeah, and in his free time he would draw pictures of machine guns, rifles, pistols.
Speaker 5:You see a theme here yeah, sounds like the kurt cobain journal that they released after he died, which I thought was extremely distasteful.
Speaker 1:And then he started painting a lot and one day a moth flew onto his canvas and it got stuck there and instead of trying to take it off, he left it there and said this is brilliant, this is my moth painting.
Speaker 5:Well, Mrs Lynch, he's either going to be a serial killer or a very successful Hollywood director.
Speaker 1:Well, that's interesting, because throughout his life he actually was very kind to every bug.
Speaker 4:Oh.
Speaker 1:Like if you saw an ant in the house, you'd have to pick it up and take it outside. What?
Speaker 6:about his uncle? What do you mean? If he saw an ant inside his house, he'd take it outside. Oh, outside. What about his uncle?
Speaker 4:What do you mean If he?
Speaker 6:saw an ant inside his house, he'd take it outside. Oh wow, what about an uncle?
Speaker 1:Jokes that hit you on the way home. That's a good one, that's a real thinker, that was a good one. But he didn't mind dead bugs if they were already dead, okay, he collected those and he would paste them onto paper only natural causes right well, yeah, that would be demented to go out and kill your subjects, wouldn't it?
Speaker 1:I suppose so and again it was all about texture for him. That's why he loved bugs. So there was an incident when he was young that I think informed the rest of his life, although he credits his creative boom to a later stage. But you got to listen to this story from his childhood and this is taken from the documentary the Art Life oh cool.
Speaker 2:Out of the darkness comes this kind of like a strangest dream, Because I'd never seen an adult woman naked and she had beautiful pale white skin and she was completely naked and I think her mouth was bloodied. And she kind of came strangely walking strangely across Shoshone and came into Park Circle Drive and it seemed like she was sort of like a giant. And she came closer and closer and my brother started to cry. Something was bad wrong with her and I don't know what happened, but I think she sat down on a curb crying. But it was very mysterious, Like we were seeing something otherworldly, and I wanted to do something for her. But I was little, I didn't know what to do and I don't remember any more than that.
Speaker 6:Good Lord.
Speaker 5:Sounds like the mom from Peter Jackson's Dead Alive. Very careful, that's a zombie, my friend. I kick ass for the Lord Whoa.
Speaker 6:Yeah, so that Wait. So did that really happen or that was a dream?
Speaker 5:No, that happened, oh my God, a naked ass. That's a horrible way to see your first naked woman, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it should be on real sex HBO in your basement with your friends giggling.
Speaker 5:Don't even get me going, man. I can't tell you how many times I tried to jerk off to taxi cab conventions. Yeah, you know, you're just jerking off to an Italian who drives a cab Horrible, there was never nudity on that one.
Speaker 6:No, it was just the stories, man. Well, there was never nudity on that one.
Speaker 1:No, it was just the stories, man. Well, and there weren't that many hot people.
Speaker 6:No On Real Sex. There was not one hot person ever.
Speaker 1:Like some gnarly looking dude, like I'm going to an orgy.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I've said this so many times, but the only episode I remember is the Pony Play episode from Real Sex. They aired it all the time. People had fun. Oh yeah, like fun, fun like horses.
Speaker 1:I don't understand yeah no one needs to be exposed to that.
Speaker 5:Let's be honest, they were having fun god knows, it probably made a couple of other david lynch's out there maybe the birth of the furry movement, too, could be.
Speaker 1:So david lynch leaves his hometown, which is a lot of places.
Speaker 5:He's in.
Speaker 1:Washington now, yeah. And then he goes to the East Coast, yeah the best coast. He spent a little time in Boston, went to the museum school, which he hated. He didn't like the city, didn't like the school. Oh, come on, I don't think he cares for the East Coast at all.
Speaker 5:I love Brooklyn. I am East Coast, midwest West Coast. Probably end up in Texas at some point.
Speaker 1:Who knows?
Speaker 5:I'm going to crucify this entire country in a cross shape. But I could see Lynch just being so fed up with Boston immediately. I think they're probably mean to him, to be honest.
Speaker 6:Yeah, it's all the smartest and dumbest people mashed up, and those stupid people completely outnumber the smart people.
Speaker 5:Right. And then the smart people feel like they're really smart because they're around such stupid people yeah. And then you got David Lynch, who was super smart but probably doesn't like school, so smart people think he's stupid. And then stupid people think he's a nerd. Yeah, he was totally screwed, yep.
Speaker 1:And he had that distinct voice. So imagine him standing there, going hi, I'm an artist. Why don't you, like me, want to see my bugs Go?
Speaker 5:Sox, Yo go Red Sox.
Speaker 1:Oh, I got some bugs in my pubes. I'm wearing Red Sox, I got some bugs in my pubes.
Speaker 5:I'm wearing red socks. No, it's a baseball team, you nerd.
Speaker 1:At one point he was roommates with Peter, who was part of the Jake Giles band, oh, and then he got stoned for the first time and went to a Bob Dylan concert. The whole group went there, okay, and he hated it.
Speaker 5:Does he like anything?
Speaker 6:Oh yeah, Dead bugs and paint. Yeah, he likes mud.
Speaker 1:I don't blame him, though. When I saw Bob Dylan, it was like I'm not a huge Bob Dylan guy.
Speaker 5:My buddy, adam, is a huge Bob Dylan fan, so I got to show him some love.
Speaker 1:Well, he's a legend.
Speaker 5:He's a legend. I've tried, it just doesn't hook me for some reason, and I don't know why.
Speaker 1:So I said to my buddy next to me like oh, when's he going to play like a Rolling Stone, really looking forward to that. And my buddy goes oh, he already played that. Yeah, oh, he already played that yeah. So anyway, david Lynch gets in an argument with his roommate Peter about the concert, and that ended their partnership. He moved out.
Speaker 5:Bob Dylan dividing people, a house divided over Bob Dylan.
Speaker 1:Then David Lynch moves to Philadelphia.
Speaker 1:Philly's a beautiful town In the late 1960s and he went to school there based on advice from his close friend, jack Fisk. And he met Jack Fisk one day at a general store. He was trying to buy a soda pop from him and Jack Fisk got to talking to him and then they realized they were both artists and decided to split rent space on a studio. So that started a very lucrative partnership. Actually, oh nice, actually, oh nice. So while in, philly lynch marries his first wife, peggy lynch, and they have a kid named jennifer, and they bought a cheap house in a high crime area that's where artists live, yeah, that's where they thrive and he said the streets were filled with hate and filth.
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 5:That's where artists live.
Speaker 6:Yeah, so Philly's like the baby of New York and Boston, like it has the grid that New York has, but all the same like historical cobblestone streets and the familiar racism that Boston has as well. Oh, that's dumb.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he hated it more than Boston, wow, and he called it a mean town. He had a racist neighbor who reeked of urine and then another one who went around squawking like a chicken.
Speaker 5:Oh, philadelphia, it's always sunny.
Speaker 1:So, interestingly enough, this got his creative juices flowing, because he was scared for his life yeah, this is truly where creatives become more creative.
Speaker 5:It was in will, I was. I lived in williamsburg, brooklyn, for 15 years and you could see it the wealthier it got, the less creative it was yeah when I first moved, there was a little grungy and you were like all right, we got some artists here and then, sooner than later, it was just full of rich hipster kids and no more art.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so remember he grew up with this idyllic childhood. Even though the family moved around a lot, it was happy and stable.
Speaker 5:It seems like he played in mud a lot. Well, yeah, I don't know if it's idyllic, it seems like he played in mud a lot.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, I don't know if it's idyllic Well, he was well taken care of, had a night, his parents didn't beat him or anything. He didn't have any stories of how he was messed up because of his childhood. So this was a contrast in Philadelphia, like oh wow, this is this world I didn't know existed, right. And he started catching ideas. And this is where he said he started living the art life, as he calls it, and the art life is simply doing what you want and being creative and being an artist.
Speaker 5:Getting used to saltines every night and being a little broke, but doing what you do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's exactly what he was at. This time broke, and so all the sounds of the city and the smell, all the senses, Right it just. He immediately started picturing all these images in his head.
Speaker 5:The neighbor is a chicken. Did you guys see the show the Gentleman at all? I don't think so. It's a show. It's a brand new hit show. It's a british comedy, guy richie involved, and there's a scene where a guy has to dress as a chicken and it's fucking hilarious. Be the chicken, be the chicken. Anyway, that's what his neighbor was acting like. Oh yeah, that's why I bring that up.
Speaker 6:Check out the gentleman if you haven't seen it will do, and rocky had to chase chickens around in philly. There we go, part of his training yes, I'm sure.
Speaker 5:Okay, I'm sure he ran by a lot of people that smelled like urine. He was running so fast.
Speaker 6:That's why he's trying to get up the steps to get away from the piss smell.
Speaker 1:I mean it kind of sounds like North Hollywood a little bit.
Speaker 5:Oh, spells of Europe, currently Everywhere, absolutely.
Speaker 1:His first experimental film involved. It was like a moving painting with the sound of wind, and I have a clip here from an interview he did with the BBC where he talks about where his ideas come from.
Speaker 2:Or they could be triggered. They just come to you from the ether and if they are in the memory, if they're stored away, one day for some reason they're released and it seems like a brand new idea. Or an idea comes in from the ether and as it pops, it may be colored from something that you know. The picture that forms sometimes reading a book are something that you know. The picture that forms sometimes reading a book are pictures that you put together from the past or your imagination kicks in. You can't really tell what forms those pictures. It's the words on the page and probably many internal things.
Speaker 5:I love him.
Speaker 1:I love him so much. Yeah, so he's very inspired, yeah, and he started to take painting very seriously and actually found work printing engravings and then he made a 16 millimeter short called the Alphabet in 1968. And that's where he decides yeah, I'm going to keep doing this Like they weren't profitable, but he was getting some attention for the short films, right, he's like I got a future in art.
Speaker 5:This isn't horrible, so I can do this.
Speaker 1:His dad came to visit him and saw some of his work and then, in an awkward car ride, told him you should never have kids.
Speaker 5:Don't do it to yourself. And and I'm yeah did he say it like you're too good to have kids, don't have them. Or was he like, son, you're not mentally stable? Yeah, like what? The second one?
Speaker 1:that's amazing but of course his wife peggy was pregnant with jennifer at the time having this conversation Too late, a couple months too late, dan. Well, his short films garnered enough attention that eventually he got offered a grant from the American Film Institute Awesome. And then he moved to sunny Los Angeles, where all the dreams come true yeah, in 1971. And began working at the AFI Conservatory. Very nice.
Speaker 1:He describes the first time he experienced California sunshine. He said he could feel it pulling the fear out of him. Hmm, interesting. And he decided this is home.
Speaker 5:So that's cool, that's very cool. He fell in love with LA I mean obviously LA in 1970. In 1971 he moved there. It's a very different city than it is now it is. I think, yeah, that's wonderful. He felt invigorated by the sunshine of Los Angeles.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and he loved it till the end. He had a house not too far from us in the Hollywood Hills, there near the Hollywood Bowl. Yeah, Very nice. So this brings us to Eraserhead his first feature.
Speaker 6:So his dad told him not to breed before Eraserhead even came out. Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he just saw his weird experimental films like one of them is an. It's like an amputee, like nursing a wound.
Speaker 5:Okay, it's very unsettling sure I mean, you know, that's the kind of person I want as a father.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so lynch wrote a 21 page script for a feature length film to be called Eraserhead, about a quiet man living in a dystopian industrial wasteland. And they give birth to a monster. And then he leaves. Oh no, he gives birth. After the deformed baby comes to be, the girlfriend splits. Oh and so he's left to care for this baby all by himself.
Speaker 5:She's all mad. She gave birth to it Exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so this was obviously influenced by his own insecurity about fatherhood. The setting is this industrial housecape, which was inspired by Philadelphia. Yeah, you can see the profound influence that had on his life and career, because after this it just led to his aesthetic filmically. And, of course, jack Nance, who we did a full episode on, already starred in Eraserhead and there's that indelible image on the poster with his Frankenstein hair, black and white, wide eyes. It's great. It's not a movie for everyone, no, everyone. But so they filmed it at some abandoned stables, um, and, you know, in the back of the afi production studio, made on a ten thousand dollar grant, because the idea was maybe he'll make another easy rider, which was cheap and profitable yeah, well, it wasn't like Easy Rider.
Speaker 1:Not at all. No, not at all. Weirdly enough, there's an acid trip scene in Easy Rider, but the real acid trip is Eraserhead.
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 5:And didn't they really take acid in Easy Rider?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, holy shit. And to make ends meet, while making this movie, david Lynch had a paper route and he would deliver the Wall Street Journal to houses in the neighborhood.
Speaker 5:Imagine that opening your front door and be like thank you, david, appreciate the paper, no problem sir.
Speaker 1:Hey, david, watch the rose bushes. So remember Jack Fisk, his friend, who he met at the general store yes well, he would end up donating all the money to finish financing the film. Oh, and he was married to a woman named sissy spacek oh wow, of course yeah, david ended up divorcing his wife, peggy, during the course of the production and he began living at the stables. So this is really the art life right here. He's living on the set.
Speaker 5:Oh, I see.
Speaker 1:Could you imagine if they did that on any other movie? Yeah, Like the Flintstones Bro are you homeless?
Speaker 5:Yeah, sissy Spacek Carrie right.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah. So this was going as good as he could have hoped for, because he's getting to make this movie and he has some epiphanies. He becomes a vegetarian.
Speaker 5:Okay.
Speaker 1:He quits drinking alcohol and he starts to practice transcendental meditation.
Speaker 5:This was very popular in the 70s. Andy Kaufman did the same thing.
Speaker 1:And this was a few years removed from that famous trip the Beatles made to the Maharashi and you know they, yeah, they all dress like Justin Trudeau. And Paul McCartney studies it to this day and David Lynch studied it to the end, and there's more on that later. It was one of the biggest things in his life besides movies Wow. So even though he's taking care of himself and he's trying to better himself, he continues to indulge in his two other favorite things coffee and cigarettes.
Speaker 1:Like all good directors, yeah, he was basically a chimney with a pompadour haircut and you know it's hard to say like you could compare any vice to that, like even eating too much. There's some things when you pair it with writing or creativity, anything, the creation of something, it's like a necessary element for some artists.
Speaker 5:I don't know about eating too much. I can't imagine like a lasagna next to Stephen King while he writes the next it.
Speaker 1:I say that like what? If you know, I can't write without my rigatoni.
Speaker 5:You know I need my cheese.
Speaker 1:I can't finish this script, gotta have the Taco Bell app open when I finish this sentence.
Speaker 5:Some vices are sexier than others Coffee and cigarettes for a director. It's a sexy. Those are two sexy vices, yeah.
Speaker 1:I just mean, if you're really trying to, you know, finish a deadline or whatever.
Speaker 6:Having comorbidities doesn't hurt. Exactly.
Speaker 5:You're not being so healthy, whatever your vice is yeah, wasn't able to finish the screenplay Jersey. Mike's was closed. And you know, I need my hoagie, I'm just ruined.
Speaker 1:So they finish. The movie Eraserhead gets released. A lot of audiences and critics didn't really know what to make of it, yeah, but it ended up becoming a cult movie, huge movie, like Pink Flamingos and the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Speaker 4:Yep.
Speaker 1:So it made the rounds in New York, la and San Francisco and ends up grossing $7 million.
Speaker 5:Nice Off a $10,000 budget, yeah.
Speaker 1:Whoa.
Speaker 5:Not bad at all, jack.
Speaker 1:Fisk is wealthy now and, of course, his wife is a major Hollywood star. Yes, after Carrie is released around the same time. So yeah, considered one of the most influential midnight movies of all time. You know who was a big fan of it? Who? Mel Brooks. Oh my God that's hilarious.
Speaker 5:And so did you know I love me some Mel.
Speaker 1:Brooks. He produced the Elephant man Mel Brooks.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I did not know that?
Speaker 6:That he did that. I had no idea until this week that this is a Lynch movie. Oh that he did that.
Speaker 1:I had no idea until this week that this is a Lynch movie. Oh yeah. So after seeing Eraserhead he meets with Lynch and he says you're a madman, I love you, and hires him to direct it. And imagine at one point during production his dad said that thing about, not that he shouldn't be a parent himself.
Speaker 1:That he shouldn't be a parent himself. Well, when his dad and his brother visited him in Los Angeles during the making of Eraserhead, they actually had a talk with him and said that he should quit filmmaking altogether and get a real job. I don't know if this father is supportive.
Speaker 6:Yeah, not really. Don't have kids and father is supportive yeah, not really. Don't have kids and go to work yeah, as an adult Work at a factory.
Speaker 5:Yeah, david Lynch, for crying out loud. I don't want David Lynch doing anything other than what David Lynch does. Yeah, can you imagine if he worked at Target?
Speaker 1:What a horrible employee he would be so, and they weren't just asking him to quit, you know, filmmaking. They were begging him, they were very worried. So imagine that. And then being broke the entire time, not knowing where this is all going to lead to. Just a few years later, in 1980, he directs the elephant man with anthony hopkins and he gets an oscar nomination for best director wow and it's nominated for best picture. This is just a few years after making his weird midnight film.
Speaker 5:I mean, as I mentioned, peter Jackson's Dead Alive. He went from that to Lord of the Frickin' Rings. It's so crazy. So Hollywood is bizarre, and they saw a lot of talent in David Lynch.
Speaker 6:They literally are killing people with a lawnmower, yeah, and then he's like oh you know, I'll do King Kong.
Speaker 5:One of the most epic trilogies of all time Nuts.
Speaker 1:So Lynch is on the map. He's one of the hottest new directors in hollywood. George lucas asked to have a meeting with him. Wow, and so he. He says I think you should direct return of the jedi oh my god, that would have been awesome and lynch says no, thank you. Oh my God, that would have been awesome and Lynch says no, thank you. What a nutsack on that guy, Can you imagine turning down Return of the Jedi God?
Speaker 1:it would have been a different movie. Oh, absolutely Like. How do you make Jabba the Hutt even weirder? Oh my. God, that scene would have gotten a lot sexier and, let's be honest, princess leia probably would have lost the top to the bikini.
Speaker 5:yeah, oh yeah, had blood blood drooling out of her mouth. You remind me of a woman I saw on the street when I was a kid.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and yoda's talking backwards. Yeah, like try. I was like I don't know what you're talking about, because I've never seen a david lynch. I was like I don't know what you're talking about because I've never seen a David Lynch.
Speaker 6:I saw you raise your head in high school.
Speaker 1:Talking backwards is a trope. Oh yes, and so David Lynch smartly turns down Return of the Jedi because he just doesn't think he's right for it. Wow, Although of course, our version of it sounded pretty good.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I think you would do great, but whatever.
Speaker 1:So he chooses Dune instead, based on the novel by Frank Herbert, of course these days everyone knows it as the Timothy Chalamet vehicle.
Speaker 1:Yes, I interviewed Brian Herbert, his son, and a lot interesting relationship with he and his father, Fairly good yeah, but it was a box office and critical failure at the time and Lynch considers this movie the only real failure of his career. He absolutely hated it. This is similar to how Stanley Kubrick hated Spartacus, and it was only after Spartacus and leaving the Hollywood system that he was able to do his real work, his personal films, right that?
Speaker 5:he was able to do his real work, his personal films, Right. It's like when Willie Nelson left Nashville for Austin. He finally got with the Outlaws and became the Willie we know and love today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's exactly like that, and when asked about a director's cut for Dune in 2024, he said it would be impossible because producer Dino De Laurentiis never allowed him to shoot anything the way he wanted to.
Speaker 5:Yeah, that's what I was going to say. I was under the impression he didn't really even get to direct Dune.
Speaker 1:No, he was a hired hand, right Quote. I started selling out even in the script phase, knowing I didn't have final cut, and I sold out. So it was a slow dying, the death and a terrible, terrible experience.
Speaker 6:oh man it's like toby hooper and steven spielberg. Mm-hmm, spielberg really directed it, true? Which one?
Speaker 1:uh, poltergeist, oh yeah spielberg will come up in this episode again. He's got his fingers in everything okay, um, leave my daughter alone, leave et alone, yeah. So there was a positive thing, though, for dune it was the theatrical movie debut of kyle mclaughlin, and he would become a frequent collaborator of lynch Absolutely, that's a fine cup of coffee. And they got right to work with the next movie, Blue Velvet, released in 1986. And Blue Velvet, this is now David Lynch.
Speaker 5:Unleashed. Yeah, this might be my favorite Lynch movie.
Speaker 1:It's debatable. For sure, I love this movie.
Speaker 5:Dennis Hopper is such a fantastic psycho actor and I'm pretty sure he was also really high in this movie. I think he was truly huffing some gasoline.
Speaker 1:What's his line in that? Like don't fucking look at me.
Speaker 5:And then, of course, they gave PBR a large push as well. Right.
Speaker 1:Because what's he trashed? Pabst Blue Ribbon. What's the one he's trashing, like Heineken or something I forget. Yeah, but he's really adamant. It has to be Pabst Blue Ribbon.
Speaker 5:PBR. They won a Blue Ribbon in like 1834, before people had taste buds. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So yeah, Blue Velvet, it's like a mystery. It's about Kyle MacLachlan finds a severed human ear in a field and then he goes on to investigate and he becomes intermingled with the world of this beautiful nightclub singer. And Dennis Hopper, who's a psycho Perfect. And there's Roy Orbison music. You got Bobby Vinton, the title song. It's great because it's kitsch, it's Americana.
Speaker 5:Yep, absolutely. I think Dennis Hopper's character and the character from no Country for Old Men, two greatest psychopaths of all time Different styles.
Speaker 1:They got to make a movie like Different styles. They gotta make a movie like Freddy vs Jason. They really do.
Speaker 5:Man, I've been re-watching Celebrity Deathmatch because it's on Paramount and if they could make that, if they could have them fight it out, that'd be fantastic, that'd be sick.
Speaker 1:So Isabella Rossellini plays that nightclub singer and her character was inspired by Judy Garland oh which, that nightclub singer, and her character was inspired by judy garland oh which, if you'll recall, she starred in the wizard of oz and this is david lynch's favorite movie hands down. Wow, it was that and it's a wonderful life. But the wizard of oz, okay, there's actually a documentary I watched called lynch oz and well, that sounds uh questionable oh, it was actually very given the history of the nation very fair.
Speaker 1:Oh god, yeah, if you don't know the context, yeah there were some things that happened lynch slash oz.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the wizard of o Oz pretty much made it into all of his movies post Blue Velvet. You see so many homages and similarities and just flat out references. So it's basically he loved the idea of, you know, turning normality on its head Like she goes from Kansas to Oz, right. Even the artifice of some of the characters, like some of the close-ups in the Wizard of Oz where you can see the makeup, like he loved that like kind of juxtaposing reality.
Speaker 5:And we do pretend. Wizard of Oz is like a lighthearted movie, but it's a horror film.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely, and it's got everything. Really. It's got so many genres in it it's comedy, it's musical, it's horror. Yeah, it's so, and yeah, so anyway, that was a big influence. Rory Orbison originally rejected Lynch's request to use the song In Dreams in the brothel scene, but then Lynch found a loophole and used it anyway. But Orbison loved the movie so ended up doing a music video for it. So that's pretty cool.
Speaker 6:Love it Turned him down, he did it anyway.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's pretty much the story of David Lynch's career. Yeah, because a lot of people will see the script like what the hell is this?
Speaker 6:Was there a specific reason he didn't want it associated with, like prostitution or?
Speaker 1:what? Well, it's a very violent movie.
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 5:Yeah, rory Orbison wasn't known as like aggressive.
Speaker 6:No, he looks like my Aunt Janet.
Speaker 5:Yeah, he really does Well.
Speaker 1:So Blue Velvet is considered one of the best films of the 1980s and he got his second Oscar nomination for Best Director.
Speaker 5:Now, to be fair, the number one movie of the 1980s was Chopping Mole, chopping Mole.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a classic. It's a classic. You ever see it.
Speaker 5:You know, I don't remember it that well it's robots that shoot lasers. They don't even chop people.
Speaker 1:I can picture the VHS cover. Yep, that's all you got to do. And then his next movie was Wild at Heart, released in 1990. And this really is the first true David Lynch movie, in my opinion, because he was able to do Blue Velvet after you know Dune, and work out of the studio system. But this is the first time that now everyone knows what he's capable of, so he gets to do absolutely anything he wants and people are going to be on board for it. So I mean, this is a weird, beautiful, exhilarating movie and just like the Wizard of Oz, it's hilarious and it's horrifying. It's an early role from Nicolas Cage, and Laura Dern had also been in Blue Velvet. She's his lover in this. I think Natural Born Killers owes a lot to it. Oh, wow. And yeah, it's like a noir road trip movie.
Speaker 6:Yeah, and Laura Dern, her mom, was actually the mom in the movie.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, yeah, help me out here. What's her name? Diane Ladd. Yeah, and she got nominated for an Oscar for this movie and she plays essentially the Wicked Witch character, and Wild at Heart is his most overtly Wizard of Oz referencing movie, because literally, glinda the Good Witch shows up in a bubble. There's so many references throughout the entire movie. Gotcha. And, in fact, let's watch a little clip from it. This is Jack Nance, who starred in Eraserhead, and you'll see one of these not-so-subtle references. Yeah, oh yeah, I remember this now.
Speaker 4:My dog barks some.
Speaker 1:Just staring at him.
Speaker 4:Mentally you picture my dog, but I have not told you the type dog which I have.
Speaker 5:Perhaps you might even picture Toto from the Wizard of Oz.
Speaker 4:But I can tell you my dog is always with me. A nice little shot here at the end a bunch of plus-sized women yes, dancing, big and beautiful.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, wow, I love that totally normal human interaction yeah, and hearing that clip you might think, hey, what's the context? Well, you're thinking that when you're watching the movie as well doesn't need to be explained. There's so many vignettes that just work out of context in david lynch's movies. So, and I actually think that clip is a great representation of why David Lynch is a genius. It just has everything in it that you love, david Lynch for the music, the mood, the sense of humor, the darkness.
Speaker 5:You can't look away. No, it's compelling.
Speaker 1:It varies the way people speak.
Speaker 5:Also, it's interesting that he seems to now have a pretty good collective of actors, oh yeah, that he continues to kind of fall back on.
Speaker 1:Exactly, jack Nance shows up all the time, obviously Laura Dern and a lot of Twin Peaks crossover in Wild at Heart, because that same year is when Twin Peaks, the TV show, premiered. The TV show premiered, so it started when he developed a friendship with writer Mark Frost after their Marilyn Monroe project fell apart, which would have been pretty cool if they made that they were going to do a biopic.
Speaker 5:Yeah, they were. Wow, marilyn Monroe brought to you by David Lynch. Mm-hmm, holy crap.
Speaker 1:Because the thing is he sort of gave you that anyway in a lot of his movies. Because we talked about the Americana, the settings. Well, he also loved the pinup girls of the 1950s, right, and the, you know, like the James Deans, the Greasers, so that shows up all the time up until you know Mulholland Drive. Even so, in some ways ways I feel like you kind of saw that already you can certainly picture what it might have been right. So his agent encouraged him to do a tv show which you guys remember tv even back in the 90s.
Speaker 5:It was not prestige, it was not no, no, if you were a television actor, you couldn't become a movie star I've heard of, and if you were a movie star that all of a sudden does a tv show, it's like they're in their loser era yeah, you get the stink on you, right, yeah and so david lynch had to really think about this and then said uh, you know okay but I would also say it was a time of appointment viewing and when the show hit like TV shows did become very, very popular.
Speaker 5:It had huge followings. So this isn't he's not doing a sitcom. No, you know this isn't full house Like Twin Peaks, I think, sort of it elevated television.
Speaker 6:Yeah, god, imagine if Lynch did a sitcom.
Speaker 5:That would be awesome. It would be the sitcom from Natural Born Killers, where Ronnie Dangerfield is having sex with his daughter.
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 5:That's what would be the sitcom, so I'm good actually.
Speaker 1:He did make a short film about. There was a parody of a sitcom starring a family of rabbits, okay, so that's sort of that I could watch. Yeah, that's sort of that, I could watch. Yeah, that's what you would get.
Speaker 1:They pitched the idea to the network as a police drama meets soap opera, and it would be about the mysterious murder of the girl next door, laura palmer, and this was loosely inspired by the unsolved murder of someone named hazel. Irene drew in 1909 oh interesting and, like blue velvet twin peaks, explores the unpleasant reality just beneath the surface in small town america I do love the way they sold it.
Speaker 1:It's a police drama but kind of like a soap opera too, and it's fucking so much weirder than all of that filled to the brim with scenes like we just watched in wild at heart yeah and you know again exploring dreams versus reality, and he mixes monsters with whimsy and he uses a lot of doppelgangers the idea, the, the duality of man, right Like good versus evil.
Speaker 5:But he has literal doppelgangers in the show as well, it was also one of the only television shows to ever star an actual log Right. The log lady. The log lady, which is absolutely incredible, and then the mother and father or the brother-sister, actually from People Under the Stairs Everett McGill, I believe the actor's name is. Those people scare the shit out of me to this day.
Speaker 1:She was in it too, wasn't she? Yes?
Speaker 5:I believe that she was the the red-haired.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh wow, that is incredible. You can keep going. I'm just fixing it. Oh, okay, people Under the Stairs directed by one of Kyle's favorite directors, wes Craven yeah one of my favorite too. Underrated movie, wouldn't you say?
Speaker 5:I mean that movie is.
Speaker 1:Is it underrated? I thought everyone knew it was scary. Well, I don't think everyone's seen it.
Speaker 5:Oh, you gotta see it, it holds up, it's man. Yeah, pornhub wasn't the first. I don't think everyone's seen it. Oh, you gotta see it, it holds up, it's man. Yeah, pornhub wasn't the first ones to entertain the idea of brothers and sisters having sex with each other. S&m fetish.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, yeah that. And taxicab confessions right.
Speaker 6:Yes.
Speaker 1:Good intro in the 90s, yeah, yeah, so yeah, by this point, when Twin Peaks premieres it. Let me just restate that. So now that, so with Twin Peaks, david Lynch's persona is well defined as a filmmaker, he's an auteur and there's even a word for it lynchian. You know, it's all the. You know it's difficult. Subject matter shot beautifully, the images are pleasing and Pauline Kael, the influential film critic, called him the first populist, surrealist Interesting, which I think makes populist, surrealist Interesting, which I think makes a lot of sense, yeah, which is why, on one hand, people are frustrated with his work and, on the other hand, that frustration turns to admiration.
Speaker 5:Right, For me, always Twin Peaks is comforting because of the soundtrack. Oh yeah, the soundtrack is very peaceful. The intro almost puts me to bed, but obviously I want to stay awake for the show. But I thought that was always interesting about that program because again, it is really fucked up, yeah, but then the soundtrack is almost like the wind.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm. Yeah, in fact, there's literally wind sounds during some of the most important moments in the series, for example in the Black Lodge. Oh, I love it. We're not going to get into the whole mythology and plot here.
Speaker 5:I'm sure there's another podcast that covers that. You can just do an entire 10 years on Twin Peaks alone.
Speaker 1:Yes, but the Black Lodge had a black and white checkered floor with red curtains and that was where the evil doppelgangers would hang out and control certain elements in the real world. But the music was by composer Angelo Badalamenti, who did all of Lynch's movies. Oh okay, Blue Velvet's score is great too. And then also mixing in the oldies, the good old jukebox oldies Love it. So the two-hour pilot of Twin Peaks debuted in spring 1990. And if you can believe it, it was the highest rated TV movie for the 1989-90 season.
Speaker 1:A two-hour premiere yeah, that is so huge Love that and you have to think of how groundbreaking this was, because we were just talking about the state of television. Then, and here comes this show that's shot like a movie and it doesn't have a lot of easy to define mainstream elements.
Speaker 5:And they don't. You know. A lot of the shows were like Columbo, where it starts and you know what happens and then he solves it. Yeah, that's the end of the episode.
Speaker 1:They call that episodic television, where you can just watch one and you're good, yeah, and that was the majority of shows Murder.
Speaker 5:She Wrote things like that. And then he has a murder show which I still don't think it's over. Right, I know it's done, but I don't know if it's done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it would continue week to week. Yeah, so if you missed an episode you might be lost.
Speaker 6:Yeah, there are horses teleporting into people's living rooms.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course you might be lost if you're watching every episode as well, and so I have a couple little pit stops I want to make throughout this where there's some interesting deaths that happened in the world of David Lynch. So the first one I want to go over is this up and coming actor named Rodney Harvey, and so he played a guy named Scotty in the pilot of Twin Peaks. Why don't we watch that clip? Okay, and you'll see his look. He's like the quintessential male model of the early 1990s, like the James Dean, scotty, mutt and Jeff just crawled in.
Speaker 2:Oh, what a wonderful world.
Speaker 1:So after that Rodney Harvey really didn't get many roles for some reason and he became addicted to heroin Oof, and so he had a really rough go of it, and in the movie or the documentary Kid 90 by Soleil Moonfry from Punky Brewster, we've talked about her quite a bit.
Speaker 6:Actually. She's got a Clinton-esque body count of dead bodies around her.
Speaker 5:Well, let's leave Punky Brewster alone.
Speaker 1:She really does though.
Speaker 5:Well yeah, why do you think she had to get adopted?
Speaker 1:Killing everyone at her old school yeah. Namely Jonathan Brandes, if you'll recall from our episode, is one of those people that she was around. She didn't cause it, no, didn't help it too much either. Death adjacent yes. And so here's her talking about Rodney Harvey.
Speaker 5:Some of my friends really needed to be heard and to have a friend listen.
Speaker 6:And they end up committing suicide, and I didn't see it back then.
Speaker 2:One. Hello, sulaim, it's Rodney, where are you? Well, give me a call if you want, but I just wanted to say hi, all right, bye.
Speaker 5:Man, the old days of the answering machine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everyone left her a voice message in the 90s. Yeah, no one had their phones on them and she just saved them all collecting them for her vanity project. Come on, all right.
Speaker 5:I'm not going to let this punky Brewster revisionist history on this orphan.
Speaker 1:So Rodney Harvey, even though he looked the part of the Manet idol career, didn't go anywhere and he died of a heroin overdose in 1998.
Speaker 5:Oh damn.
Speaker 1:And his. I guess photos of him were used in an anti-drug commercial as in like, don't be like this, yeah this is your face on drugs or something.
Speaker 5:I mean, he's very handsome, so that's sad. Alejandro. So that's sad. So that's sad onward, so that's sad Out of all that.
Speaker 6:So that's sad it is. That's sad Onward. What else is it?
Speaker 5:Anyway, so that's sad. Yeah, well, I'm not Yada yada yada Rodney.
Speaker 1:Harvey dead. I'm not licking my chops thinking about it like Funky Brewster.
Speaker 5:It's not acceptable. Slander.
Speaker 1:So he was in the pilot which in Europe was released as a standalone movie, by the way.
Speaker 5:Oh, interesting.
Speaker 1:And then the series hits the ground running. The second episode aired as a regular one hour drama, like Columbo in the Thursday 9 pm slot, and it scored ABC's highest ratings in four years Whoa.
Speaker 5:That's cool. It's so funny that this was such a huge hit. I know.
Speaker 1:It's bizarre, it's incredible, yeah, that there was a time that this was the number one show. Yeah, and this was also the water cooler effect. Remember that, yes, where people would go to work, stand around the water cooler and be like did you see the log lady last night? What was she talking about. So yeah, needless to say, cultural phenomenon. The girls from Twin Peaks were on the cover of Rolling Stone. The Simpsons parodied it. You know you've arrived when you got Bart Simpson joking about you.
Speaker 5:Similar hairstyles actually. Yeah, bart.
Speaker 1:Simpson looks like Jack Nance from Eraserhead. Yeah, a little bit. Wow, we're seeing some influence there. In its first season, twin Peaks received 14 Emmy nominations Damn. And it won the Golden Globe for Best TV Series Drama. So what happened with season two? Why did this show not last as long as LA Law, right or Columbo?
Speaker 5:Law and Order. Yeah, in the heat of the night, law and Order special butthole edition that was continuing to go on.
Speaker 1:Well, that's because Laura Palmer's murder was solved midway through season two and afterwards ratings started to decline, because that's what the entire show was about who killed Laura Palmer. Yeah, when it's solved it's like okay let's see what's on Columbo.
Speaker 6:It's like juror number two telling you the twist 15 minutes into the movie.
Speaker 1:And then it just never changes.
Speaker 6:We could have stopped watching at that point, literally once you hear that, just turn it off, damn.
Speaker 1:And I hate to say it, but I sort of agree with, you know, it not being as good after the mystery is solved.
Speaker 5:It was sort of aimless.
Speaker 1:Some people blame star Lara Flynn Boyle. Why? Because she was dating Kyle McLaughlin at the time and on the show Kyle McLaughlin's character, agent Dale Cooper, was supposed to have a relationship with Sherilyn Fenn's character, and Lara Flynn Boyle put the kibosh on that. She was jealous, and so then they had to quickly write something else, and so they said the content suffered because of that. Wow, and she even took it further, because after the show was canceled, unfortunately after season two, she refused to appear in the movie, the Twin Peaks movie, what's?
Speaker 1:wrong with her so they had to replace her.
Speaker 5:I hate to say this, but that girl needs to eat something.
Speaker 1:She's angry.
Speaker 5:I think she's grumpy. She just needs to have a big old steak and just go be a part of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then she refused to appear in even the new Twin Peaks, which we'll talk about later on. So she's got some bug up her ass about this and David Lynch is going to find it and put it on a canvas.
Speaker 5:It walks free if it's alive, but if it's dead it's mine.
Speaker 1:I call this Laura Flynn Boyle's bug ass.
Speaker 5:Oh beautiful piece of art, wow, wow, gorgeous.
Speaker 1:Very understated it's not all her fault. Abc also changed the time slot a few times you can't do that you can't, it just never works not back then.
Speaker 6:Like you said, it was appointment television. If you change the appointment, people are gonna get pissed yeah, they really are.
Speaker 1:And there's this great cliffhanger at the end of season two that nobody cared about. Oh so they tried to like.
Speaker 6:They're like our one cliffhanger at the end of season two that nobody cared about. Oh so they tried to like. They're like our one cliffhanger is already completely solved.
Speaker 1:Let's give you another one, oh, and it's a major one too yeah, when you see it, and people were just left with that. Of course, we did get a season three on a different network many, many years later. Yes, so anyway. The original show went on indefinite hiatus and then it was unceremoniously canceled, but david lynch got the funding to do a prequel movie. So this is another thing where he was ahead of the curve when it comes to these ideas, like people weren't doing prequels back then Everything was linear, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so to make a major movie based on Twin Peaks and have it take place before the series even started, well before Laura Palmer's murder was solved? Yeah, because it stars Laura Palmer when she was alive, right.
Speaker 6:Yeah, doesn't it tell you how she got murdered?
Speaker 1:Exactly yeah. So that was a new concept released in 1992.
Speaker 5:That is very interesting. Did he ever talk about that decision to release that, to give that information midway through season two? Did he ever discuss? Because I just strategically it doesn't seem like the smartest thing to do not following the usual linear narratives and doing what it wants to do.
Speaker 1:It was solved, naturally, when they felt it should be solved. So, aside from that, obviously it wasn't the smartest marketing move, right, right, but yeah. So Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me was released in 1992, but it was a commercial and critical failure. Ooh, people weren't into it for some reason.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I mean, I think that they had already sort of seen it. And I think you're right, the idea of a prequel was probably strange for people to understand. They'd be like, so this is before everything happened. Yeah, you know, and nowadays obviously it's so common the multiverse, all this other stuff but back then that was really unique.
Speaker 1:It's also not an easy movie to sit through. There's a lot of dark material and it doesn't have as light a touch as the series has. And there's also a problem with the kids. Like the high schoolers, they aged a lot between 1989, 1990, and the making of the movie, so it looks like they're adults.
Speaker 6:It's just like Jesse Plemons, too, when they did the El Camino Breaking Bad movie, and it's supposed to be in the middle of everything, but yet he's gained like 40 pounds.
Speaker 5:Whoa, leave the Plymouth alone. Jesse's a great guy. He's your pool buddy Amazing actor.
Speaker 6:but when things go like that and something's not exactly the way it should be, people notice. Well, I think he's too skinny.
Speaker 5:now, every time I see him I'm like buddy, you're looking like Lara Flynn Boyle. Hey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like Lara Flynn Boyle. Yeah, he aged like 20 years in El Camino, you know. Besides that it was good and his performance, of course. Anyway, Absolutely. I'm trying to save you, so that you he's being a fattest.
Speaker 6:I'm not being an obesitist.
Speaker 1:Yeah you are.
Speaker 5:You're a fattest.
Speaker 6:No, I'm saying that.
Speaker 5:They already call him Fat Damon. You are, You're a fattest.
Speaker 6:No, I'm saying that they already call him Fat Damon you asshole.
Speaker 1:Yeah, see, I didn't say that.
Speaker 5:You're an asshole.
Speaker 1:And it's not his fault. I blame Vince Gilligan. He should have known not to do that and they have services.
Speaker 5:You know what you eat on those sets? A bunch of donuts.
Speaker 6:Yeah, when things aren't exactly the same, people notice. That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 1:They should have used the anti-aging technology from the Irishman. Please, god, stop using that. And maybe they had an anti-fat device too.
Speaker 5:No one is being fooled. Being like, I think, Harrison Ford's only 43. No, you're allowed to be old. Get new people.
Speaker 1:Robert De Niro is supposed to be 20 years old lifting things off the truck and he's like.
Speaker 5:I can't do it anymore with robert de niro all right.
Speaker 1:So this brings us to our second little detour with an actor named frank silva, and he played evil spirit bob in the twin peaks series. So yeah, he is the. When the bad guys look in the mirror, they see Bob.
Speaker 5:I love that. Oh, it's so good Creepy.
Speaker 1:So in this clip David Lynch talks about the origins of the character and how that came to be.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh.
Speaker 4:Frank Silva was the set decorator and we were shooting in Laura Palmer's bedroom and Frank was moving furniture around and somebody said a woman said Frank, don't lock yourself in that room, because he had just moved a chest of drawers in front of the door, of drawers in front of the door. And I wasn't even looking in that direction but the image of Frank locked in that room popped into my head and I rushed to Frank and I said Frank, are you an actor? And he said why? I happened to? Yes, it happened to be.
Speaker 4:And I said you're going to be in this movie. And he said fantastic. And so I had Frank hide on one pan, shot across Laura Palmer's bedroom, freeze down by the bars of the bed and just be looking right at the camera. And we shot that and I didn't know what I was going to use it for, no idea at all.
Speaker 1:And so later on he's filming Laura Palmer's mom reacting to something, like she's screaming because she's feeling some kind of evil spirit. And when they're watching the footage, David Lynch realizes that they accidentally shot the set decorator, Frank Silva, in the mirror. You can see his head in the mirror behind her and that was an accident. Wow. And then David Lynch thought about and he's like nope, that's not an accident, we're going to use that other shot now. That's what she's looking at. And then David Lynch thought about it and he's like nope, that's not an accident, we're going to use that other shot now. That's what she's looking at. And there's Bob. Wow, that's fantastic.
Speaker 6:So that's what we call a happy accident.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and so this is that scene in Twin Peaks. I miss her so much.
Speaker 2:I miss her so much. I miss her so much. Laura, oh Laura, my baby.
Speaker 1:Oh, laura, my baby love it. Yeah, and he is striking looking. He's got this tan skin, long gray hair, this icy stare. It really is nightmare fuel Absolutely. So he was also in the movie and obviously throughout the series and this is a big deal for him. It changed his life Absolutely huge. The movie and obviously throughout the series, and this is a big deal for him. It changed his life absolutely huge, and so here's a clip of him in an interview talking about the recent success actor frank silva, known as bob to peak freak, says he is already celebrated in his hometown, according to his mom people would like come up to her and go.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, I hear your son, uh, is on this tv series and she goes. Oh yeah, he. I hear your son is on this TV series and she goes. Oh yeah, he's the killer and he just killed somebody the other day. She's really proud.
Speaker 3:Proud too is David Lynch, who did indeed stop shooting to celebrate the birthdays of his two primetime spirits and the fact that the show is back on primetime Thursday night come the end of March.
Speaker 1:We know how that ended and, unfortunately, frank Silva did not have a good ending either, oh no. What happened to him? Well, he loved the Twin Peaks fandom and the fandom was huge. There was a magazine that was published at the time called Wrapped in Plastic Jeez, and it was widely distributed. All about the world of twin peaks, wow. And there were fan conventions. That's great, just for twin peaks, just for twin peaks. Yeah, comic cons weren't around yet, no, so again, this is another new idea, wow. And so, yeah, he would go to all of them, sit on the panel and, you know, loved being involved, yeah. And then he eventually just fell off the map and his roles dried up, like his work dried up, and he was also suffering from HIV. Oh, that sucks. And that started to take a toll. And a couple years later, later, he, just he was borderline homeless, damn. And then hiv progressed into full-blown aids and he went to live with his mom which it's very sad when you hear that clip that she was so proud of him yeah yeah, and he died at her house in 1995 oh god
Speaker 6:yeah it's so battle yeah, it's a frustrating thing, especially right at that time. They're like almost to the point where they could live with it like we've. We figured it out that hiv is not as scary of a thing as you know we grew up with. It was like death sentence.
Speaker 5:and we all know how do it you have to own a bunch of car washes. Yeah, that's what Magic Johnson did and it worked. That's the secret sauce. Yeah, my brother-in-law, my bro's husband. He lost so many people to AIDS and HIV. So that is just very sad, devastating.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that brings us to our next chapter, called Find Out Next Week.
Speaker 5:Oh, Whoa, it's a cliffhanger.
Speaker 6:Hey, we haven't solved the mystery yet, so people will be back next week.
Speaker 5:We haven't solved the mystery Just getting through Twin Peaks David Lynch what a story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's still a lot more to go over which you will not want to miss. There's a lot of great clips coming up. Is there a?
Speaker 6:highway that might be lost. Oh yeah, oh nice.
Speaker 5:Nice, you're going to want to find that.
Speaker 1:And there's a certain man who was accused of murdering his wife from that movie oh, it was also a previous episode. Oh, it rhymes with cake. Ooh, blobbert cake, blobbert cake.
Speaker 5:Oh, who could that be?
Speaker 1:Okay, so anything else before we bid adieu until next week, guys.
Speaker 5:Not much. Go to patreoncom slash diebud. Okay, bud, monday through Thursday you can watch that live on the Patreon. Super, super excited to be joining forces with you boys. Yeah, let's see. If you want to email OK Bud, you could. Also, if you want to talk about something that we're talking about here on Die, go to okbudpod at gmailcom. Yes, currently we are accepting recipes and pictures of dogs and cats. And now, anything you want to say about David Lynch, yeah.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I think that's about it, shannon. Luckily she just posted in the chat here that she had a family member diagnosed with HIV in 94, and he's still alive. Woo, wow, thank goodness.
Speaker 5:Yes, awesome, yes, indeed All right. And to everyone struggling with anything out there hang in there, yep, and we'll try to get through this together.
Speaker 6:Yep and until next week.
Speaker 1:Don't go dying on us. Bye-bye, hail yourselves Bye.
Speaker 4:Yeah, thank you.