During the making of Mulholland Drive, a modern classic that still confounds cinema fans, actor Justin Theroux says he had many questions for his character's motivations but director David Lynch told him he did not have any answers.
Over the years, Lynch has given 10 clues to unlock the 2001 movie, a surrealist neo-noir story of an aspiring actor (Naomi Watts), who arrives in Los Angeles and befriends a woman with amnesia (Laura Harring) recovering from a car accident.
The story follows different other characters and arcs, including that of a Hollywood hotshot director Adam Kesher, played by Theroux.
Lynch, who is notorious for keeping his actors in the dark about the real meaning behind the scenes, later worked with Theroux on "Inland Empire", which was released in 2006.
Theroux said he kept asking questions to the director for a pivotal scene in which his character finds out that his wife is cheating with the pool cleaner.
“He’s a total outlier because he doesn’t answer your questions... The first couple days of Mulholland Drive, I was peppering him with a million questions like, ‘Well, why am I there? Who’s the cowboy? What’s going on? What reality are we in?'" Theroux told IndieWire while promoting his Apple TV+ series The Mosquito Coast.
On the first day on the set, Lynch cleared the whole set to talk to Theroux.
"They were laying cable and hanging lights as you do. And he said, ‘Wait a minute, everyone’s got to get out of here. Me and Justin need to talk.’ We went in and into the house (where we're) shooting, I think the scene where I come home and find my wife with the pool guy, (played by) Billy Ray Cyrus.”
“I started asking him questions… When I finished a question, (he’d say), ‘You know, I don’t know, buddy. But let’s find out.’ He wasn’t being cute or cheeky or evasive; he genuinely didn’t know. He’s like, ‘I don’t know.’ It’s like you’re on an escalator into a cloud with him, you never know where the escalator lets off.”
The actor said he had a similar experience while working on "Inland Empire", co-starring Laura Dern as a Hollywood actress coming undone after taking on a haunted new role.
“The crew (David Lynch) assembles are great. You’re giggling. The stuff with Laura Dern and ‘Inland Empire,’ we were laughing so much.
"Then you go to the screening of it, your brains all over the back wall. I had no clue that that’s how that scene was gonna be, the tone of that. Most of the time I’m a pretty quick study on (tone). But David Lynch is an absolute outlier in that respect that what you end up seeing once he’s gone to the lab, and cut it up and put sound in and arranged at all, is so different from the experience you’ve had on set," the actor said.
Mulholland Drive is often considered as one of Lynch's finest films and was ranked 28th in the 2012 Sight & Sound critics' poll of the best films ever made.
Lynch has refused to comment on "Mulholland Drive's" meaning or symbolism, leading to a lot of debate and different interpretations of the movie, other than his 10 famous clues to fans.
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