Steven Spielberg, Nicolas Cage, Naomi Watts Remember David Lynch: ‘Brave, Brilliant, and a Maverick’

Numerous leaders in entertainment, celebrities, and former collaborators have mourned the death of David Lynch, the multi-disciplinary artist and filmmaker whose spectacularly unnerving work fused dreams and nightmares and forever changed the landscape of movie-making.

Steven Spielberg, who featured Lynch in his semi-autobiographical film The Fabelmans, remembered him as “a singular, visionary dreamer who directed films that felt handmade. He added, “The world is going to miss such an original and unique voice. His films have already stood the test of time and they always will.”

Lynch’s longtime friend and collaborator over the past four decades, actor Kyle MacLachlan, shared a moving tribute to the director on social media, alongside photos of them together throughout the years. “What I saw in him was an enigmatic and intuitive man with a creative ocean bursting forth inside of him. He was in touch with something the rest of us wish we could get to,” wrote MacLachlan, who starred in Lynch’s 1984 film Dune, psychological thriller Blue Velvet in 1986, and Twin Peaks just four years after.

“While the world has lost a remarkable artist, I’ve lost a dear friend who imagined a future for me and allowed me to travel in worlds I could never have conceived on my own,” MacLachlan continued. “I will miss him more than the limits of my language can tell and my heart can bear. My world is that much fuller because I knew him and that much emptier now that he’s gone.”

Mulholland Drive star Naomi Watts shared a heartfelt tribute to Lynch on Instagram, together with a tender clip with the director on set. “My heart is broken,” she began in her post, while crediting him for putting her “on the map.” Watts, who also appeared in the Twin Peaks reboot, wrote “David invited all to glimpse into that world through his exquisite storytelling, which elevated cinema and inspired generations of filmmakers across the globe. … I’m yelling from the bullhorn: Godspeed, Buddy Dave!”
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Fellow Mulholland Drive star Laura Harring took to Instagram to remember Lynch: “All artists and humans who came across you, will mourn your passing on, but I know you are creating movies, writing, painting and meditating from up above.”

Patricia Arquette, who worked with Lynch on Lost Highway, learned of the filmmaker’s death during an interview. “David was really incredible,” she told Sirius XM’s Radio Andy. “There’s nobody like him.” She added that she and co-star Balthazar Getty had recently discussed working with Lynch.

“I was just at the Morocco Film Festival and the woman who ran it… she loves David, and they’re good friends. We were talking about David,” Arquette said. “And then I called my friend Balthazar, who was in Lost Highway with me, and I was like, ‘We gotta go see David.’ And, you know, I was trying to leave word for him. I was feeling like I needed to see David.”

Lee Grant, who also appeared in the 2001 film, shared on X that she first became fascinated by Twin Peak‘s “dreamscapes” in the Nineties, as the production manager of a film she was working on planned part of their shooting schedule around the broadcast of the television show that “the crew refused to miss.”

“Years later, when offered the chance to work with him for a day, I jumped at the opportunity to see how a mind like that directed. It was a day on Mulholland Drive,” Grant said. “He was, in actuality, a one of a kind artist.”

Nicolas Cage, who starred in Lynch’s Wild at Heart in 1990, called Lynch “one of the greatest artists of this or any time” in a statement to Deadline. “He was brave, brilliant, and a maverick with a joyful sense of humor,” Cage continued. “I never had more fun on a film set than working with David Lynch. He will always be solid gold.”
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Alicia Witt, who made her film debut in Lynch’s Dune, wrote in a lengthy tribute that she was “in shock.” “Without David Lynch, i have no idea what my life would look like,” the actress wrote. “He taught me what it was to make a movie, how to conduct yourself on a set, what to expect from a director, the sort of respect that is paid and is given. the way you give yourself completely and trust entirely when a director who has a clear vision asks you to fly with him creatively, destination unknown to any save for him.”

The Roots drummer Questlove praised Lynch on Threads for being “the first human/creative that stressed the importance of not overworking and taking time out to breathe & meditate and searching for creative avenues not in my comfort zone.” The producer and author added that Lynch was his “guiding creative light for the Somethingtofoodabout book from 2016.”

Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn wrote on X: “RIP David Lynch. You inspired so many of us.” Ron Howard also took to the platform to remember Lynch as a “gracious man and fearless artist who followed his heart & soul and proved that radical experimentation could yield unforgettable cinema.”

Director Edgar Wright wrote on X, “What can be said about David Lynch that hasn’t already been captured in countless tributes by fans and filmmakers?” The filmmaker shared a memory of interacting with Lynch, who he described as a “director of singular vision, defined by his magical style and fascinating ambiguities.” Wright added, “Though his work is one of a kind, he has inspired many to pick up a camera. While my work may not seem particularly ‘Lynchian,’ his influence always looms large.”

The Smashing Pumpkin’s frontman Billy Corgan, whose band’s song “Eye” featured in the soundtrack for Lynch’s 1997 film Lost Highway, wrote on X that working with him was “like a dream out of one of his movies, and I treasure the times I got to speak with him and hear firsthand his vision for a film.” He added, “He was a true artist, through and through.”