David Lynch, the stars' farewell: "The world has lost an extraordinary artist"

Many stars are mourning the death of David Lynch, the brilliant director who passed away yesterday at the age of 78, five months after Lynch himself announced he had been diagnosed with emphysema, a chronic lung disease, after "many years of smoking."

“My heart is broken,” said British actress Naomi Watts , the star of one of his masterpieces, Mulholland Drive, which won him the award for best director at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival along with an Oscar nomination. “My friend Dave… A curious man, radiant with light, who spoke words from another time, making me laugh and feel at ease. How did he ‘see’ me when I was so well hidden and had even lost sight of myself?! It wasn’t just his art that influenced me: his wisdom, his humor and his love gave me a special sense of self-confidence that I had never had access to before. Every moment together seemed charged with a presence that I had rarely seen or known. I just can’t believe he’s gone. I’m broken but forever grateful for our friendship .”

Watts, a two-time Oscar nominee, also starred in Inland Empire as Suzie Rabbit and in the third season of Twin Peaks in 2017.

Kyle MacLachlan, Lynch's fetish actor who played FBI agent Dale Cooper in the mysterious world of Twin Peaks, couldn't be missed: "I owe my entire career, and really my life, to his vision. He was in touch with something the rest of us wish we could reach. While the world has lost an extraordinary artist, I have lost a dear friend who imagined a future for me and allowed me to travel to worlds I could never have conceived of on my own. I will miss him more than the limits of my tongue can say and my heart can bear. My world is so much fuller for knowing him and so much emptier now that he is gone."

Also from the world of Twin Peaks is Lara Flynn Boyle, in the Donna Hayward series : "Here goes the real Willy Wonka of cinema. I feel like I got the golden ticket for having had the chance to work with him. We will miss him greatly."

“David was a modern giant of the avant-garde. I’m so proud to have worked with him on the first Dune movie,” Police star Sting wrote on Instagram. And Nicolas Cage, who starred in the 1990 film Wild at Heart, which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival : “He was one of the greatest artists of this or any time. He was brave, brilliant and a maverick with a joyous sense of humor. I’ve never had so much fun on a film set as working with David Lynch. He will always be pure gold.”

(Online Union)