BBC -  What`s on

David Lynch: I try to move on, because what happens after you finish a film is out of your control, it’s like riding on an aeroplane, you know it's petrifying. It’s better to concentrate on the work and try to find the next thing.

But it’s going fantastically well, Richard Farnsworth who plays Alvin Straight is getting a lot of justifiable attention. Will it be nominated for Oscars?

Richard is so fantastic and I think Richard is getting all these new offers. They're talking about an Oscar for Richard, it's a beautiful thing for him, really great.

I mean this just in the broadest view, it seems to have turned your fortunes around a little bit, in terms of the way you are regarded within the film community. I know you don't necessarily measure yourself in this manner but you had the period leading up to 'Twin Peaks' where suddenly it seemed you could do no wrong, and then you made a couple of movies and they kind of didn’t want to know. It seems once again you’re back on top, are you turning down those big lunch offers?

That's the hole and you're supposed to keep your eye on the doughnut. After doing it I went way down, and it was beautiful being down, there's no place to go but up, and it gives you a freedom. On 'Blue Velvet', we had tremendous freedom, and life is like a sinewave you know, you go up and you appreciate being up when you've been down. So, all those kind of things are outside of your control. It makes you a little bit crazy when you think about it, you’re supposed to just concentrate and enjoy the work.

Let me go back to 'The Straight Story' because I want to talk about Richard Farnsworth. How did he come to your attention? Were you familiar with his work beforehand?

I had seen his work and I had seen his face and those eyes. There's something about him that I think people just like, and he's got a natural innocence, strength. You see his soul as he works, and so when his name came up, because you consider many people, but up comes a name... and that was Richard, born to play this role.

Did you ever get to meet Alvin Straight or was he dead before?

He was dead before I came on board, he died in 1996.

I’ve seen the photographs you took of his house and actually, you shot in the house as well I believe.

We found his house vacant which was kind of an incredible thing, and we were able to go in and fix it for filming. We shot in his house, in that original town and the people were fantastic. They would race off to the garage or basement to get us stuff, and it was great.

It's the sort of story that I imagine, if it hadn't actually happened, you would have invented. It does seem very much in keeping with your world view.

It's the weird thing about a true story, one accepts the fact that he rode all this way on a lawnmower. If you made that story up, you know what would have happened!

You work once again with Angelo Badalamenti, I believe he has scored every one of your films since 'Blue Velvet'. What's the working relationship between you two, what makes it such a special deal for you?

I think combos are interesting phenomena, you get two people together and they seem to click in a certain direction and I think that’s me and Angelo. Certain things comes out when the two of us sit down. He likes me to sit in at the beginning and talk to him about a mood. We don't look at any film, we don't do anything in a normal way, I just talk words and feeling and then Angelo plays those words.

I still think that the music he provided for 'Twin Peaks' is probably the finest TV scoring.

Well, that's beautiful.

Tell me about your recent TV project, which I haven’t seen. I know it turned into something of an unfortunate experience for you.

It was not unfortunate for me. It's called 'Mulholland Drive', it's a mystery set in Los Angeles. It was meant to be a continuing story on ABC, the home of 'Twin Peaks'. Brand new bunch of people at ABC, very enthusiastic in the beginning and I loved working on this project. When it was finished, they hated this thing and it's dead.

What did they hate about it, the length, the pace, what was it?

Pretty much everything... that’s what I heard.

This is one of several kind of projects since 'Twin Peaks' for television, which hasn't really lived up to your expectations.

There were a couple right after 'Twin Peaks' and there's a long period of nothing. And Tony Krantz, my ex-agent talked me into going back in, and I thought things would be good because I loved the idea of a continuing story which you can't do in film, so I'm stupid - I'm a sucker.

Let me ask you just a couple of random things, which you might like. 'The Straight Story' seems to sum up many of the qualities of an America that maybe the rest of the world doesn't think still exists. There's a certain kind of fraternal quality there, a certain honesty, a certain openness. Does this tie into your past as an eagle scout, do you still have that eagle scout view of the world?

There's many sides to all of us, and obviously there's something in me that made me fall in love with this simple tender story. Also, in that neck of the woods, Iowa and Wisconsin, the people I found to be very friendly and I explained it by saying - they're farmers and there's few of them and a great amount of land. They kind of rely on each other. I'm sure if you went off into the countryside in any country, you’d find people who were different from the city people.

Are there current film makers who influence you or would I be right in thinking you're still into that school of Fellini, and film-makers from that kind of European perspective?

I think everybody's on their own. You know all the things about film for me come from inside, and I always said that Philadelphia was my greatest influence especially in the early films. But I feel close to the more European sensibility and I feel close to it in terms of the freedom given to people in Europe and not in the States.

What’s the next project for you?
I haven't got a clue, in between films you start looking and you don’t know when it’s going to hit.