Naomi Watts "could see the creative spirit alive" in David Lynch before his death

“We had a beautiful lunch at his house,” she told the outlet of a meal she shared with Lynch and Blue Velvet and Inland Empire star Laura Dern. “I knew he’d been unwell but he was in great spirits. He wanted to go back to work — Laura and I were like, ‘You can do it! You could work from the trailer.’ He was not, in any way, done. I could see the creative spirit alive in him.” She went on to call the situation “So deeply, deeply upsetting.”

In the final year of Lynch’s life, the director shared that his days of being on set for film production were likely done, hence why Watts suggested he “work from the trailer.” In August, Lynch revealed that his nearly life-long love of cigarettes had led to emphysema and had made him particularly vulnerable to infection, specifically COVID-19. Lynch ultimately died in the immediate aftermath of the devastating Los Angeles County wildfires this past January. 

Watts continues that she had expected to see Lynch fairly soon again after the last lunch she shared with him and Dern. “I thought I would see him in a couple of weeks [after that last lunch] because I was here in L.A,” she tells the outlet. “There’s a lot I could share but I want to be private about it because of his family. But it was a really powerful meeting that filled me with just so much love and hope.”