David Lynch says he’s too ill to direct films in person due to emphysema

The acclaimed film director David Lynch has said he is too ill to direct films in person and that remote projects could be his only option going forward.

In a new interview with Sight and Sound magazine, the Twin Peaks creator said: “I’ve gotten emphysema from smoking for so long, and so I’m homebound whether I like it or not. I can’t go out. And I can only walk a short distance before I’m out of oxygen.”

He added: “Because of Covid, it would be very bad for me to get sick, even with a cold. So I would probably be directing from my home … I wouldn’t like that so much. I like to be amongst the thing and get ideas there. But I would try to do [a film] remotely, if it comes to it.”

The acclaimed director’s last project came in the form of Twin Peaks’ celebrated 2017 return for 18 episodes, while his last film came in 2006’s sprawling Inland Empire.

Lynch further explained: “Smoking was something that I absolutely loved, but in the end, it bit me. It was part of the art life for me: the tobacco and the smell of it, and lighting things and smoking and going back and sitting back and having a smoke and looking at your work, or thinking about things; nothing like it in this world is so beautiful. Meanwhile, it’s killing me. So I had to quit.”

In 2020, it was also reported that Lynch had been working on Wisteria/Unrecorded Night, a 13-part Netflix series.