Director David Lynch reveals emphysema diagnosis: “It would be very bad for me to get sick”
After filming some of the most celebrated arthouse movies in history, famed director David Lynch has announced that he will be stepping down from directing due to a recent emphysema diagnosis.
The lung disease is known to cause breathlessness in its patients and has no discernible cure. Given that any cold complicates the patient’s well-being, Lynch has elected to step away from public life due to fear of potentially getting COVID while on set.
Lynch said that the disease has led to him barely having the ability to leave his house, telling Sight and Sound, “I’ve gotten emphysema from smoking for so long, and so I’m homebound whether I like it or not. It would be very bad for me to get sick, even with a cold.”
The intensity of the disease has also led to Lynch becoming less mobile around his house, usually struggling to take more than a few steps around his house without losing his breath.
While Lynch has said he would be open to directing, it would have to be exclusively from his home, explaining, “I would do it remotely if it comes to it. I wouldn’t like that so much.” Of course, there are still various projects that the director has been hoping to get off the ground.
Since his last film, he has been working on the screenplay for his latest venture, Antelope Don’t Run No More. While he had written the script in 2010, Lynch is still hopeful that he can have one of his final films make it to the big screen.
He had also been looking to get a deal for his animated feature Snoofworld, which he started alongside Caroline Thompson of The Nightmare Before Christmas fame. Despite trying to get a deal for the film on Netflix, Lynch lamented that it never materialised, stating, “Old-fashioned fairy tales are considered groaners: apparently, people don’t want to see them. It’s a different world now, and it’s easier to say no than to say yes.”
Lynch hasn’t released a new feature film since 2006’s Inland Empire and returned to directing in 2017 for the remake of Twin Peaks on Showtime. Despite the network offering to grant the series another season, there has been no word as to whether any new episodes are waiting in the wings. Outside of directing, Lynch’s most recent appearance was onscreen when playing a movie executive in the Steven Spielberg autobiographical film The Fabelmans.
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