Naomi Watts Pays Tribute to ‘Mulholland Drive’ Collaborator David Lynch

Naomi Watts says her “heart is broken” following the death of her Mulholland Drive director David Lynch. After the four-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker’s family announced Thursday that Lynch died at the age of 78, Watts joined the chorus of Lynch’s former collaborators paying tribute to the visionary filmmaker online.

“My heart is broken. My Buddy Dave… The world will not be the same without him. His creative mentorship was truly powerful,” the British-Australian actress wrote on Instagram. “He put me on the map. The world I’d been trying to break into for ten plus years, flunking auditions left and right. Finally, I sat in front of a curious man, beaming with light, speaking words from another era, making me laugh and feel at ease. How did he even ‘see me’ when I was so well hidden, and I’d even lost sight of myself?!”

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Lynch and Watts first worked together on 2001’s Mulholland Drive. Watts’ roles as Betty Elms and Diane Selwyn kickstarted her career. The film also earned Lynch the award for best director at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival alongside an Oscar nod.

“I just cannot believe that he’s gone. I’m in pieces but forever grateful for our friendship,” she concluded. “I’m yelling from the bullhorn: Godspeed, Buddy Dave! Thank you for your everything. 
—Buttercup xox.”

Watts has often credited her role in Mulholland Drive and Lynch as having changed the course of her career. Speaking with The Guardian in 2017, the actress recalled how she “wasn’t getting parts” in Hollywood and “was giving myself away. My soul was being destroyed.” She said that Lynch “changed that. It was having someone actually make eye contact, ask questions he was truly interested in, take the time to unveil some layers.”

After starring in Mulholland Drive, Watts’ career took off. She scored two Best Actress Oscar nominations – in 2004 for 21 Grams and 2013 for The Impossible – and star in dozens of titles, including the Oscar-winning film Birdman and King Kong. She also reunited with Lycnh on several occasion, including for Lynch’s 2006 film Inland Empire, with Watts voicing Suzie Rabbit, a role she first played in his 2002 project Rabbits. They again reteamed for Showtime’s 2017 revival of Twin Peaks, in which she portrayed Janey-E Jones.

Outside of his work with Watts, Lynch worked with celebs like Kyle MacLachlan, Laura Dern, Nicolas Cage, and Willem Dafoe, to name a few. Some of his most influential works include Blue Velvet, Eraserhead, Wild at Heart, and The Elephant Man, among many others.

Lynch revealed last year that he had been diagnosed with emphysema. Deadline reported that the filmmaker “took a turn for the worse” after he was forced to relocate from his house due to the Sunset Fire earlier this month.