Naomi Watts insists David Lynch was ready to “go back to work” before his death

Posted On March 21, 2025March 21, 2025

Mulholland Drive star Naomi Watts claims David Lynch expressed a desire to go behind the camera again shortly before his untimely death in January.

During a wide-ranging interview with the Los Angeles Times, Watts revealed that she last saw Lynch at his home in November 2024. She and Laura Dern – another of Lynch’s favourite stars – went for lunch with the ailing director and had a great afternoon talking about how he wanted to get back in the filmmaking game.

“We had a beautiful lunch at his house,” Watts remembered. “I knew he’d been unwell but he was in great spirits. He wanted to go back to work — Laura and I were like, ‘You can do it! You could work from the trailer.’ He was not, in any way, done. I could see the creative spirit alive in him.”

She then sighed deeply and added, “So deeply, deeply upsetting.”

The actor, who also appeared in Twin Peaks: The Return and Inland Empire for Lynch, revealed that she expected to meet with him again a few weeks after that lunch date. Unfortunately, that never came to pass, and she admitted, “There’s a lot I could share, but I want to be private about it because of his family. But it was a really powerful meeting that filled me with just so much love and hope.”

Overall, Watts reflected wistfully upon that final meeting with the director, who she says changed her life by casting her in Mulholland Drive. “I took an accidental picture,” she recalled. “We took a picture of all of us, but then my camera remained open, and I bumped it — it was a picture of the perfect architecture of his house and two palm trees. It just screamed LA and David Lynch.”

She continued, “I sent the picture of the three of us and then that random picture that said so much. It was a perfect blue sky. His house — he really loved that space. Blue skies, hope, magic, just dreamy. I sent him a text and he wrote back the most incredible David response.”

Related Topics