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- David Lynch's eating habits
artistexplorer- May 19th, 2009
The filmmaker and director David Lynch was born in 1946 in Montana. He was nominated for an Oscar for Best Director three times: for The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, and Mulholland Drive.
According to his wikipedia page: "Over a lengthy career, Lynch has employed a distinctive and unorthodox approach to narrative film making (dubbed Lynchian), which has become instantly recognizable to many audiences and critics worldwide. Lynch's films are known for surreal, nightmarish and dreamlike images and meticulously crafted sound design. Lynch's work often explores the seedy underside of "Small Town U.S." (particularly Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks), or sprawling California metropolises (Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive and his latest release, Inland Empire). Beginning with his experimental film school feature Eraserhead (1977), he has maintained a strong cult following despite inconsistent commercial success."
Through his cult-like following, Lynch has gained quite the reputation of having bizarre, or obsessive, eating habits, that seem to fit the personality of the oddball director.
In a 2001 LA Weekly interview with John Powers:
I originally wondered if his fabled obsessiveness was a sly shtick, a way of giving reporters something droll to write about while throwing them off the scent. No doubt this is partly true. But in 1989, I spent a week interviewing Lynch for a French documentary and saw firsthand how thoroughly his obsessions shaped his life. Back then he wouldn't allow any food in the house (he hated the smell) and ate exactly the same thing every day (as I recall, a tuna sandwich for lunch). Since then, the menu has changed but not the obsession:
"I'll have the same thing every day for six months maybe, or even longer," he says. "And then one day I just can't face it anymore.
"Now, I have cappuccino in the morning, many coffees during the day, and salad that's put in a Cuisinart so each bite tastes the same. No meat. This has got nuts and eggs and some lettuce and different kinds of greens. So it's a little bowl of Cuisinart salad with Parmesan cheese on top. And then at night I have a block of Parmesan cheese, maybe a 2-inch cube, and red wine. Mary [Sweeney, with whom he lives] cuts it up for me into little chunks and gives it to me in a napkin."
When I ask why he wants to stick to this redundant diet, he tells me that it's "reassuring . . . there are no surprises there." Lynch's inner life is obviously so fertile and turbulent -- a steaming Amazon of run-amok impulses -- that his culinary routine provides a kind of sanctuary. Like the concrete walls that house him, his dietary rituals help him fend off the outer world so he can devote all his time to work.
And in a 1990 Time Magazine article by Elizabeth Bland:
Some people want to know who killed Laura Palmer, the Twin Peaks homecoming queen with a past, the identity of whose murderer has been kept secret nearly as long as that of Jimmy Hoffa. More people, it seems, want to know about David Lynch's eating habits. How many damn fine cups of coffee (lots of milk, gobs of sugar) does he drink each day? Does he share the cherry-pie fixation of his TV hero, Special Agent Cooper? On the Tonight Show, Jay Leno quizzed Lynch about his Guinness Book-worthy consumption of chocolate milk shakes at the Bob's Big Boy chain in Los Angeles. The astounding stats: one every day at 2:30 p.m. for seven years, 1973-79.
So let's break the big news first: David Lynch's current favorite liquids are red wine, bottled water and coffee. "I like cappuccino, actually. But even a bad cup of coffee is better than no coffee at all. New York has great water for coffee. Water varies all around. We've got to drink something. Do you just drink water, sometimes? It's very good for you." And, stop the presses, David Lynch doesn't cook at home. "No, ma'am! I don't allow cooking in my house. The smell. The smell of cooking—when you have drawings, or even writings— that smell would go all over my work. So I eat things that you don't have to light a fire for. Or else I order a pizza. The speed at which I eat it, it doesn't smell up the place too bad. The smell doesn't last too long."
Although it comes as no suprise that Lynch would have these particular quirks, considering his films and the characters he creates, it is completely fascinating to me that one could be so regimented and specific about their food. However, he's not alone - afterall, Woody Allen cuts his bananas in seven pieces and won't have salt passed to him.
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