The closest Laura Dern came to replicating her one-of-a-kind ‘Inland Empire’ experience
Watching Inland Empire is such a unique experience that even if you sit with it multiple times, you’ll probably still be just as confused as when you first saw the movie.
It’s arguably the most Lynchian thing David Lynch ever made, and it also happened to be the last feature film he’d make in his lifetime. Inland Empire continues his longstanding interest in women in trouble, something he’d previously explored with the likes of Dorothy Vallens, Laura Palmer, Renee Madison, and Betty Elms.
Recruiting previous collaborator Laura Dern, who’d already starred in the likes of Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart, Lynch made Inland Empire following the success of Mulholland Drive, similarly keeping with the Hollywood backdrop. This time, though, Lynch refused to use a large budget, instead making the film independently so that he could fully indulge in all of his most experimental ideas.
The result is a movie over three hours long, predominantly shot on a handheld digital camera, with many scenes shot on location as though Lynch had stumbled upon a street, picked up his camera, pressed play and instructed Dern to simply act insane.
When Dern’s character, her identity uncertain, breaks down on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, it’s such a harrowing and impactful scene because it feels so real. Lynch opts for not a single ounce of polished Hollywood gloss, instead basking in the sort of grittiness that really captures the horrors of the industry.
Dern found the experience of filming Inland Empire liberating (there wasn’t even a finished script to work with), her trust in Lynch, a true friend, allowed her to pour all into the performance. She might’ve been snubbed for an Oscar despite the director’s campaign, which involved a cow, no less, but she was able to walk away from the project feeling artistically fulfilled.
That’s the kind of experience that seems so rare in the industry, which is typically defined by big studios and higher powers dictating your every move. So, Dern was delighted when her experience of filming the recent comedy Is This Thing On?, directed by Bradley Cooper, brought her back, in a way, to the kind of shooting that she’d only ever encountered with Inland Empire.
Cooper worked on a low-budget to bring the John Bishop-inspired movie to life, often shooting in the streets of New York himself. This emphasis on working instinctively, on utilising your surroundings and actively allowing the process of filming to influence your next move, served the film well, and Dern felt like she’d captured that spirit of working with Lynch in the process.
She told Observer, “Inland Empire was the only other experience I had where my director was right there with the camera. Bradley, as an actor and as our family, knows us so well and feels the instincts with us in character. The most fun of your life is to be in it and feel an instinct as an actor that you catch up to after the take is done, and you go, ‘Oh man, maybe I should try this…’”
