As the tributes pour in for David Lynch in light of the visionary filmmaker’s passing, there’s one thing linking all the tear-jerking messages from his leading ladies and his one and only leading man. They’re all signed with the nicknames Lynch came up for them.
Kyle MacLachlan’s eulogy was especially hard to read for fans of everything that the actor and Lynch built together. They became the best of friends after collaborating in Dune, Blue Velvet, and the Twin Peaks series, including three television seasons and one prequel film. That’s an entire lifetime of shared experiences, which began when Dune producer Dino de Laurentiis scouted MacLachlan from a theater play he was doing as a college student. De Laurentiis is also the reason Lynch would forever call Kyle “Kale.”
The actor signed off on his emotional Instagram post by thanking Lynch for everything. “I remain forever changed, and forever your Kale,” he wrote. In a 2018 The Late Show appearance, he explained that the nickname originated from the Italian producer mispronouncing his name. Lynch, of course, thought it was genius, so Kyle would never be Kyle again. There was only Kale now.
Similarly, both Naomi Watts and Mädchen Amick also signed their tributes with their Lynchian nicknames. Watts, who credits the late director for putting her “on the map” with 2001’s Mulholland Drive after a decade of failed auditions, was “Buttercup” for Lynch, and he was “Buddy Dave” for both her and co-star Laura Harring. Amick was “Madgekin.” “He was my north star,” she said of the collaborator and friend who directed her in Twin Peaks.
Nicolas Cage, christened “Nicster” by Lynch, also celebrated the life of the surrealist pioneer with whom he worked in 1990’s Wild At Heart. “I never had more fun on a film set than working with David Lynch. He will always be solid gold,” he told Deadline. “Solid Gold” was not only one of the filmmaker’s favorite expressions, it was also Patricia Arquette’s alias, according to his biggest muse, Laura Dern.
Arquette, who starred in Lynch’s Lost Highway in 1997, learned about his death in the middle of an interview while promoting her Apple TV Plus show Severance. Visibly shaken up by the news, she told SiriusXM’s Andy Cohen that she had recently planned to visit Lynch, but never got around to it. “I was feeling like I needed to see [him.] David was really incredible. There’s nobody like him,” she reflected.
Among Lynch’s other screen queens was the eternal Laura Palmer, Sheryl Lee. In an appearance at a screening of Twin Peaks in August, Lee said Lynch would always refer to her by her full name. Not exactly a nickname, but still personalized.
Finally, having opened this article with Kyle MacLachlan, it’s only fitting to close it with the only other actor who could rival his place in Lynch’s heart and catalog: Dern. “I’m so lucky that I worked with David Lynch. I’ve worked with him my whole life, but I started working with him at 17,” she told Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson during an episode of their podcast this past summer.
17 is when Lynch cast her in Blue Velvet, though she didn’t have to audition — he was sold with just a meeting over malts and french fries at his favorite diner, Bob’s Big Boy. “He needed [her character] Sandy, at her root, to be such a believer, so hopeful, such an optimist, and that really is my nature,” Dern told AnOther Magazine in 2020.
She starred in another two of his films, Wild at Heart and Inland Empire, and the third season of Twin Peaks in 2017. She was also responsible for convincing Lynch to agree to that cameo in Steven Spielberg’s 2022 film The Fabelmans, playing another iconic director, John Ford — that was the last time he ever graced the big screen. And what a farewell.
Dern’s nickname was Tidbit, presumably inspired by her young age when the pair’s partnership began. The actress is the only Lynch muse who hasn’t shared a message about his departure as of writing. The visionary filmmaker was 78.
Published: Jan 17, 2025 02:23 pm