A version of this article was originally published on July 25, 2016

Get the fishbowl lens ready, David Lynch is ready for his close-up. For too long, one of life’s greatest mysteries, along with the blue box of Mulholland Drive, has been why Lynch doesn’t act more. That’s all to change in 2017 with the floppy-haired legend taking supporting roles in Jennifer Lynch’s A Fall from Grace, John Carroll Lynch’s Lucky, and of course his own revival of Twin Peaks.

When Lynch plays a character, he doesn’t assimilate for the role. And why should he? He’s a living enigma, a lightning bolt in slow motion. He speaks with the same intonation and certainly won’t lose the quiff, let alone do a “Daniel Day-Lewis”. He’s just David Lynch – and that’s what everyone wants. In this chronological run-through, we explore how Lynch’s physical presence is an onscreen instrument (let’s say a Theremin) that taps into his idiosyncratic powers. Unlike Tarantino, this is a director who should be acting in more films.

UNABLE AND SCARED NURSE IN THE AMPUTEE (1974)

During downtime on Eraserhead, Lynch and Catherine E. Coulson (aka the Log Lady) offered to test film stock for the AFI on one condition: they could do whatever the hell they wanted. The resultant short stars Coulson as the Stump Lady, an amputee whose leaky leg creates a bloody mess. Cartoonish and silent, Lynch plays a nurse tasked with stuffing tissues into the open wound like a pro – it’s as if he’s done it before. Some people stare dead-eyed into the lens to check their new webcam works; Lynch assesses equipment by crafting his own DIY body horror.

SPICE WORKER IN DUNE (1984)

Dune, the original Spice World: The Movie, is a tedious experience, ignored by fans and loathed by Lynch himself. The brief spark of interest is hidden in its two-hour running time when Lynch pops up as a mining machine operator, covered with soot all over his face. Unlike his blink-and-you-miss-it background cameos in Heart Land (1980) and The Elephant Man (1980), he actually gets to speak.  “But sire,” he exclaims, “we can’t leave all this spice.” Lynch turned down Return of the Jedi to make Dune, and for this brief moment, the exasperation in his voice doesn’t look like acting.

WILLIE IN ZELLY AND ME (1988)

Tina Rathbone’s creepy period drama revolves around the emotional trauma and psychological torture of a young orphan, but in some counter-casting, Lynch is the antidote to all the suffering. He plays Willie, the softly-spoken neighbour – effectively the male romantic lead – who successfully woos Isabella Rossellini. If there’s menace in his behaviour, aside from the smart attire, it’s that he’s too warm and tender – the kind of pure innocence portrayed by Kyle MacLachlan in Blue Velvet. Lynch and Rossellini were IRL partners at the time (couldn’t you tell by the loving way he wrote her into Blue Velvet?) and his earnestness is surprisingly endearing. In another reality, he could have been a less bumbling, more charming Hugh Grant.

GORDON COLE IN TWIN PEAKS (1990 TO PRESENT)

Lynch took on Zelly and Me to calm his acting nerves, which set him up handsomely to play Gordon Cole across seven episodes (and the spin-off film) of Twin Peaks. Every appearance from Lynch as the boisterous FBI agent is special; he designed the show’s twisted environment, and it’s enthralling to witness a creator in what’s effectively his dreamland. Wearing a hearing aid, Lynch demonstrates a natural knack for comedy, often overshadowing (volume-wise, anyway) his co-stars with ease, even when it’s David Bowie. As an occasional visitor, Gordon is the one person too weird to live in the town of Twin Peaks, and that in itself is a testament to Lynch’s individuality.

MORGUE RECEPTIONIST IN NADJA (1994)

In Michael Almereyda’s precursor to A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, a hip, shoegaze-loving vampire takes her cape to the morgue where the receptionist – Lynch in Gordon Cole uniform – is protective of the corpses. Lynch’s cameo, in part a stamp of approval, is brilliant casting: it requires an actor who’s recognisably human, yet also an authoritarian on the wavelength of the undead. Of course, Lynch ticks all those boxes, even holding his own in a staring contest with the bloodsuckers. A few years later, he cast himself as a morgue worker in Lost Highway but cut the scene, probably to avoid typecasting.

VARIOUS VOICES IN DUMBLAND (2002)

In addition to directing and drawing the entirety of DumbLand, Lynch voices all the characters, who include a chuckling cowboy, a shrieking woman and a Polyphonic Spree of singing ants. The animation is crude and the absurdist humour is an acquired taste; what makes it worthwhile is the novelty of Lynch, so calm in interviews, yelling out lines ranging from “Fucker never even said thank you” to “I am a one-armed duck fucker”.

THE KNOWLEDGEABLE ONE IN PEIXE VERMELHO (2009)

After Lynch’s long onscreen absence – his uncredited cameo in Inland Empire is voice-only – he finally appears, possibly as himself, in a Spanish short film titled Red Fish. Eight minutes in, the language shifts to English when the protagonists ask him if it’s possible for a man to disappear after a fish dinner. His response? “There’s no such thing as red herring.” The whole thing’s a clear rip-off/tribute to Lynch, so fair enough: a shortcut to legitimising a movie’s “Lynchian” aesthetic is to get the man himself.

GUS IN FAMILY GUY & THE CLEVELAND SHOW (2010-2013)

Lynch’s many voice appearances – 21 in total – in Family Guy and its spinoff are quite upsetting, like the first time you discover Beck is a Scientologist or that Tim Burton is BFFs with David Cameron. In the role of Gus, an incompetent barman, it’s a waste of Lynch’s arresting cadence. So let’s just assume he was too polite to turn down the request.

JACK DAHL IN LOUIE (2012)

In the greatest piece of TV that isn’t Twin Peaks, Lynch guests in two episodes of Louie as a talk show guru – his job, Rocky-style, is to train Louis CK into the next David Letterman. Lynch’s physical presence would be enough, but Louie goes further, paying homage to the director’s body of work by emulating his industrial sound design. In return, Lynch plays up his comic persona as a tough nut to please, informing Louis, “I’ve known you for a week and you haven’t made me laugh once.”

Though it’s written into the script, Lynch really is an intimidating figure, and there’s a meta-awareness that Louis is starstruck the entire time. Furthermore, Lynch revels in this power and steals the show in his demonstration of how to be a TV presenter: all of a sudden, a flick switches on, and he lights up the studio, proving he has the charisma to host a late-night chat show (but of course, he’s too good for that). Weird and wonderful, he’s a natural showman who knows to leave the audience begging for more. 

JOHN FORD IN THE FABELMANS (2022)

Lynch’s final on-screen performance was in Steven Spielberg’s critically acclaimed, semi-autobiographical film The Fabelmans. In the film, Lynch portrays John Ford, the legendary American director and producer widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers of Hollywood’s Golden Age, and one of the first American directors to be recognised as an auteur.

The Fabelmans is often grouped with a wave of films released between 2019 and 2022, such as Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Damien Chazelle’s Babylon, which romanticise old Hollywood cinema. However, Spielberg’s film takes a different approach. Rather than glorifying the past or its art, The Fabelmans explores how film and art can both reflect and distort reality, revealing their power to manipulate and be manipulated.

It’s a fitting final performance for Lynch, whose body of work consistently blurred the boundaries between what is "real" and what is not, challenging audiences to question their perceptions of reality and illusion.