Poster art by Sean Longmore
The entire catalogue of David Lynch works will screen at the Texas Theatre, beginning Wednesday night with Wild at Heart (8) and Eraserhead (9). David Lynch: A Complete Retrospective runs through Sunday, June 4.
Ahead of the event, the Advocate presents a Q and A with actor Balthazar Getty (below) who starred in Lynch’s Lost Highway in 1997 and in Twin Peaks 2017. “If you look at his work, he keeps a small stable of actors and people that that he continues to work with,” Balthazar says of the iconic director.
Several of those actors and others who have collaborated with Lynch will appear at Texas Theatre over the next two weeks.
Scott Ryan — founder of Lynch-devoted publication Blue Rose Magazine and the Red Room podcast — will interview guests including Blue Velvet collaborator Duwayne Dunham, Mulholland Drive singer/actor Rebekah Del Rio, actor Natasha Gregson Wagner, Mulholland Drive magician Richard Green, filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe, Charlotte Stewart (Eraserhead, Twin Peaks), Twin Peaks actors George Griffith, Michael Horse, Kimmy Robertson and Sherilyn Fenn and Getty.
The David Lynch retrospective is put on by the production company Talented Friends, which belongs to Jason Reimer, co-owner and creative director of Texas Theatre, and Chicago’s Music Box Theater’s Daniel Knox, who also curated a lineup that includes rare clips and short cuts before each full-feature screening. He programmed a similar event last spring in Chicago.
“In Chicago we had everything,” Knox said in a YouTube interview. “In Dallas we’ll have a little bit more than everything.”
Lost Highway featured Patricia Arquette and Balthazar Getty
Lost Highway will screen May 27 along with an in-person Q and A featuring Getty and Natasha Gregson Wagner, who played his girlfriend in the early part of the film (she’s also Natalie Wood’s daughter in real life).
Getty got his first big role, playing Ralph in Lord of the Flies. The creators came to his school and had boys read, he says. “It was the first time I thought of acting. I thought at that time that I was going to be a ninja.”
The 48-year-old father of five (ranging from a new baby to a 21-year-old) is busy these days with his music, found under Balt Getty, a fashion line and acting. He’s in two upcoming movies — Megan Griffiths’ Year of the Fox and Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis. He’s preparing to head to Dallas to speak with a bunch of die-hard Lynch heads. I’m weird about big crowds, so we got us a one-on-one.
Advocate: People in Dallas are going to watch Lost Highway at this thing, possibly for the first time, maybe it’s been years, what was it like auditioning for that role?
Getty: I was already well aware of David Lynch from Wild at Heart, Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, and already knew that he was American jewel. He didn’t have me do lines or anything. From what I know he doesn’t really audition people like that. I went in and spoke with him for a while. And in his David Lynch way he just gave me the part right then and there.
A: Pretty big deal …
It was a lucky string of events. Detour magazine had a little piece about me that came across David’s desk, and he saw the photograph of me. That look I had at the time was what he wanted.
He became and still is a great friend and a mentor. I went on to do the reboot of Twin Peaks in 2017. Anybody that’s ever worked for him will tell you that they cherish and love him. He’s loving, so passionate, so knowledgeable.
A: Technically, as an actor, what did you learn from David Lynch?
He was very demanding in that way — example, early on in the shoot was a small scene where my character Pete has come out of prison, and he comes back home, and in the scene his parents cook him a lunch, and he looks back at his parents and there’s a small interaction.
We were filming the scene and the camera was on me and we’re doing take after take after take. Finally after like 20 takes he says, let’s cut and we’ll come back after lunch. I was pretty much in tears. Thinking I can’t give David what he wants.
He ended up writing me a really kind of trippy little letter with some really bizarre direction and insight into it. And from what I remember it pretty much said, “when your mom and dad hand you the food, I want you to imagine that as you’re eating that you’ll never grow old or never become sick.”
And then there was another note that said, think about being a child and seeing a hummingbird over your father’s head, or something like that.
We came back from lunch and did one take, and it was cut, print, moving on. He challenged me and all of the actors. He’s very specific about what he’s looking for and taught me a lot. After a while you sort of create a shorthand with him where he’ll just whisper little things into my ears and and I’m able to kind of be that vehicle for for his vision.
A: How long did y’all spend shooting Lost Highway?
About three months, which is pretty long for a small independent.
A: Did you have any kind of grasp of what the film is about?
No. None of us really did. You just trusted David.
A lot of people love this film and love David, and so I get asked still quite a bit, sometimes weekly, what was that movie about? What’s beautiful about David’s work is you know, it means different things to different people at different times.
One thing that wasn’t clear was how scary it would be. It’s not a linear thing, and it changes every time, you see different things. I think it’s a love story. I think it’s about infidelity. I think it’s a lot of things.
A: Lost Highway‘s cast is amazing — you’re with the great Patricia Arquette much of the movie … do you have many memories, anecdotes about your co-stars?
Patricia is actually the godmother of my firstborn. We’re incredibly close. I can remember David had her speaking in this very specific, slow kind of way. And I can remember her being, you know, scared, and not sure what she was doing exactly. And whether or not it was going to work, and of course, when you see it now, she’s brilliant. And a lot of people forget Richard Pryor is in it, amazing working with him, and Bill Pullman. David always creates this family atmosphere on the set.
A: As people view this on the big screen in 2023, what would you want them to know about the differences from 1997?
Tech is a big one.
This technology is constantly evolving. Now they create all these special effects in post production, they can even do it on a phone now, but then all that stuff had to be edited on film, cut and splicing film together. And a lot of the weird shaky camera stuff, you’d literally take the lens out of the camera, twist it back in and shake the camera. Now there are filters and plugins, but then it was even more of an innovative art form.
A: Did you find he inspired and paved the way for younger directors?
Oh absolutely. Though at the time Lost Highway came out it wasn’t a hit — for the diehards, believe it or not, it was too mainstream — and of course for the general public it was too strange. But many young directors will tell you that David was their inspiration. He created a whole genre. Not too long ago Ryan Gosling told me he had a Lost Highway poster up in his house, said it’s one of his favorite movies.
And over time it resonated with so many people, so many have told me that it inspired them to become an actor or inspire them to start directing, and that’s not even to mention the music — Bowie, Smashing Pumpkins, Lou Reed, Trent Reznor.
A: Was your venture into music also inspired by David Lynch at all?
David’s a very musical person as am I, so it’s always been a big part of a lot of the work I do. At time David would have music playing during scenes that didn’t have dialogue, and to have that music on the set was was really cool because it suddenly brought you in there and you felt like like you were already in the movie.
A: You’re in an upcoming movie directed by Francis Ford Coppola — that makes at least two very distinguished directors, household names even among casual movie fans, that you’ve worked with — how does that feel?
It’s a bucket-list kind of thing, working with these great filmmakers.
A: So, you’re headed to Dallas to talk to all these Lynch diehards — have you done this sort of thing before?
No, never, it should be fun.
A: Been to Dallas before?
I have maybe once. I don’t know the city, but we’re going to film some stuff while we’re there. (A: I need to follow up on that comment.)
A: What’s your favorite David Lynch film, not counting the one you star in?
I’d have to say Wild at Heart. Nike Cage.
For a full schedule of the David Lynch retrospective, visit the Texas Theatre website.
