How Ben Stiller almost starred in ‘Mulholland Drive’: “David thought he was an extra”
You’d think that someone like David Lynch would’ve had his finger on the pulse a little more, considering that he was able to tell complex stories about the human experience, but really, he was all consumed by the garden he had tended to for decades, finely crafting a space where he could bring his ideas to life, unbothered by the shiny exterior of Hollywood.
Art came before anything else with Lynch, who released his first feature film, Eraserhead, in 1977, following five years of budget struggles. He chipped away at it over this time, painstakingly watering his flowers in the hopes that they would grow into something fully formed. ‘Fully-formed’ might be a stretch here, because what came was a surrealist nightmare featuring a bizarre alien-like creature and a radiator-dwelling singing woman. Whatever it was, critics were unsure, but it became his ticket into the film industry, and he subsequently made his way down Hollywood’s yellow brick road with the Mel Brooks-produced The Elephant Man.
Throughout his career, Lynch continuously returned to the theme of corruption and the hollow nature of the ‘American Dream’, representing it through severed ears hiding among the flower beds of perfectly trimmed gardens lined with white picket fences, or by exposing the deep-rooted horrors of an otherwise picture-perfect town. Then there was his depiction of Hollywood, the ultimate embodiment of the ‘American Dream’, in the form of Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire, two films that peeled back the red curtain and explored the despair, betrayal, and cutthroat nature of an industry that few know how to navigate with ease.
The director just wasn’t bothered with the glitz and glamour of Hollywood in the way that leaves many people spellbound, hypnotised by the allure of walking a red carpet or doing an interview. With that, he hinted at the dark past (present and future, for that matter) of an industry he’d been in long enough, even though being a part of it didn’t interest him in the slightest.
It’s no surprise then that he wasn’t all that familiar with the newest faces in Hollywood. As much as he set his work in that world, he didn’t exactly spend his spare time leafing through the pages of People or lining up at the cinema to go and see the latest comedies, like There’s Something About Mary. That’s why he didn’t have a clue who Ben Stiller was, mistaking him for an extra during the production of Mulholland Drive.
Talking to the Washington Times, Justin Theroux, who played the film-within-the-film’s temperamental director, revealed Lynch’s lack of familiarity with big stars, hence why Stiller almost ended up as an accidental extra in the classic 2001 movie.
“David is so wonderfully unplugged from the whole Hollywood scene that he might find it difficult to name one or two directors, let alone borrow any aspects of their lives or personalities,” Theroux explained.
So, when Stiller showed up one day with hopes of simply visiting his friend on set, he was met with an offer that he stupidly turned down. “Here’s an example. Ben Stiller came to visit me on the set one day. David thought he was an extra. He even offered him a job as an extra when we explained that Ben was just a friend and wasn’t really looking for movie work. It shows you how completely in his own world David is,” said Theroux.
Evidently, despite Lynch’s dedication to depicting Hollywood onscreen, as he so terrifically did in Mulholland Drive, he was too absorbed in the process of making his art to actually familiarise himself with the industry’s latest faces; they were all the same to him.
