Film is so many things, and you work for two years or more to get it to feel absolutely correct, it's correct that you can make it. And then, to translate two hours of an orchestrated thing into some words, especially when you don't have a gift for words, you always fail. So I can't tell you.
Well actually, part of it was two words "Lost Highway," which Barry Gifford had written in his book "Night People."
For some reason those words made me dream. It wasn't any story, it wasn't any... it was a possibility, a dreamlike possibility. And then, the last night of shooting of "Fire Walk with Me", I had a thing roll through my head, which was an idea but sequences of ideas.
And not controlling at one bit, unfolded, and I held that until Barry and I got together and I told him that, and he happened to like that. And the title and that idea was the starting point. And then, you go from there.... But a starting point focuses you in one area, and when you get focused, it became like a magnet and you can together pull things out of, like a doorway, and they come out and show themselves.
My first concept was there were two different people, so I was thinking to look at them from an acting point of view that I was gonna make them very different; vocal pattern, the way they move, their laughs, and all this ... so it was sort of exciting. And then David said that "No, no, no, they are the same person! " So then, you have to cross over the reality border because it can't really be the same person and one of them die?"
Robert Loggia wanted to play Dennis Hopper's part in "Blue Velvet", and came on the day we were casting an actress. And there were two people, a young guy to test for Kyle's part and Robert Loggia to test with this actress for Dennis Hopper's part, Frank Booth. I didn't get to Robert and when I went out to tell him, you know, we had a shutdown, he became very upset. And I never forgot how upset he got.
So it was sort of perfect I saw an anger that he was sitting on and it just made him perfect to play Mr. Eddie/Dick Laurent.
It was the time when I was riding in the car with him and Mary, and we were going down the Laurel Canyon, you know the winding thing. And then some guy came up behind us and he was honking. Uh, you know, it was a road and everything. And then he pulled over, and let this guy drive passes and then he continued down the road. And then I said to him, "Well David, you are a nicer guy than I am." And then, he turned to me and he got, "No, I'm not! " He got, "I really want to destroy that fellow up there, but I just don't have time."
It just strikes me that we could talk about what's happening in Los Angeles, maybe many places in the world. People are going through red lights. It's a big problem. And I understand the frustration of the light, you know, turning yellow .... the cars in the front are going ahead, but it's extremely important to stop for the red lights.
エディが頭を撃ち抜かれる直前の名ゼリフですね。作品の中では絶妙なハマり具合になっていますが、原文は ”You and me, mister... we can really out-ugly the sum'bitches, can't we?” ですから、「お前と俺は本当に最低のクズ野郎だ」がもっと近くなると思います。
Money makes 'em meaner'n shit, don't we already know. Money's the greatest excuse in the world for doin' dirt. But you and me can out-ugly the sumbitches, I reckon. (訳) 金は人を狂わせるからね。どんな汚いことだって世の中やっぱり金がモノを言う。でも私らはその中でもどうしようもない部類だと思うわ。