{"id":160502601,"date":"2023-04-01T05:29:58","date_gmt":"2023-04-01T05:29:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/?p=160502601"},"modified":"2026-08-14T01:07:58","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T01:07:58","slug":"scott-ryan-discusses-his-new-book-on-lost-highway-the-fist-of-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/?p=160502601","title":{"rendered":"Scott Ryan Discusses His New Book on Lost Highway: The Fist of Love"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If David Lynch can follow up Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me<\/em> with Lost Highway<\/em>, then Scott Ryan can surely follow up his phenomenal book on Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me<\/em> with The Fist of Love<\/em>, his new book on Lost Highway<\/em> right? While the order of Scott\u2019s books on the work of Lynch was a mere coincidence, make no mistake about it, The Fist of Love<\/em> is a must own book for fans of Lynch\u2019s work and not necessarily just fans of Lost Highway<\/em>. I had the privilege of being the first person to read Scott\u2019s new book and as you\u2019ll see in our interview here, he was successful on several fronts but perhaps most notably, in writing a book that uncovers something about the entire body of David Lynch\u2019s work and also, revealing more about the man himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AG<\/strong>: Why Lost Highway<\/em>? You mentioned in The Fist of Love<\/em> that the 25th anniversary of the film was on your mind and that you obviously did an issue of the Blue Rose Magazine<\/em> about the film. I found it interesting that you went from Fire Walk With Me<\/em> to Lost Highway<\/em>, just the same as it appears in the chronological order of Lynch\u2019s films. What was the moment when you\u2019re like, I\u2019m doing a book on Lost Highway<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SR<\/strong>: I will say I hate that I\u2019m following Fire Walk With Me<\/em> with Lost Highway<\/em>. I wish that I wasn\u2019t. You know, I didn\u2019t even want to do a Lynch book. Fire Walk With Me<\/em> was the first time I did a Twin Peaks<\/em> book. But you know this better than anyone\u2014as a small guy, in the big world of entertainment, you gotta go with what you can do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I almost don\u2019t even choose my books. I want to write about art and I love interviewing. I gotta take what I can get sometimes. Because I did the book on Moonlighting<\/em>, I became friends with Glen Gordon Caron which is insane to me. He created Moonlighting<\/em> and he\u2019s the reason I\u2019m an author. He also did Medium<\/em> with Patricia Arquette and there\u2019s nothing I won\u2019t ask for. And so I said, look, I\u2019m a huge David Lynch fan. Do you think you could introduce me to Patricia so I can try to get an interview? He sent this beautiful email to her and said very nice things about me. So she agreed to do an interview and and then Natasha said yes, Natasha Gregson Wagner. If you\u2019re a kid from the \u201990s, you know, that\u2019s a huge get. She was in Two Girls, A Guy & A Pizza Place<\/em>\u2014are you kidding me? Then I got Balthazar and I had three out of the four leads, so, this is like an assignment for me. It doesn\u2019t mean I don\u2019t love it because I do love The Fist of Love<\/em>. Since I didn\u2019t have that passion for Lost Highway that I have for Fire Walk With Me<\/em>, I could really study it and not feel it, if that makes sense? If I\u2019m talking to Sheryl Lee, that\u2019s too crazy for me. She\u2019s Sheryl Lee! Here, I don\u2019t have that. Like I admit in the book the first time I ever watched Lost Highway <\/em>in my life was when we were working on it for Blue Rose Magazine<\/em> back in 2018 or 2019, so it doesn\u2019t have a history with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AG<\/strong>: As writers, we can be typecast in a sense, where people always want to read the same stuff from us. Did you fear that at all when deciding that this was your next book, like am I setting myself up to be a Lynch writer forever?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SR<\/strong>: A ton of fear, yes, you know, it\u2019s not what I want to be\u2026 But my next book, which I\u2019ve already started and I\u2019m in the middle of writing now, is about movies made in the \u201990s, and it\u2019s gonna be a wider thing, but it\u2019s kind of funny because you know what two movies were made in the \u201990s? Lost Highway and Fire Walk With Me<\/em>. Of course he also did Wild at Heart and The Straight Story in the \u201990s. He made the most movies in that decade. But I did not choose Lost Highway<\/em>. Lost Highway<\/em> chose me just because everyone said yes and Bill Pullman\u2019s people even said yes, but then they just never got me him for The Fist of Love<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AG<\/strong>: In the third chapter of the book, you\u2019re examining the script and you\u2019re comparing it to what we see on screen. There\u2019s a lot that I don\u2019t want to specifically mentioned here because I think there there\u2019s some of the real gems of the book, but maybe just kind of give an example of something that in that, that research that really stuck out to you in terms of changes from the script to what we saw on screen eventually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SR<\/strong>: I don\u2019t think you would have a missing pieces type thing from Lost Highway<\/em>. It\u2019s pretty much what they did and that\u2019s what Sabrina said as well. That being said, there are of course differences because there always are in films. There was a scene in the morgue and the doctor has got these beautiful women next to him and then there\u2019s this gross dead body. He throws a cigarette on the ground and you just hear everything while the camera stays on the cigarette and they kind of walk around and it just seemed like it would have been a very interesting shot. And Deepak, however\u2026 he does tell a story about them filming that scene and how crazy it was for everyone to try to figure out how to keep the cigarette burning. That is probably the one for me that I bet you that had that been shot, we\u2019d all still be talking about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AG<\/strong>: You have a distinct voice as a writer but your voice changes in that interview with Debbie Zoller. It I don\u2019t know if emotional is the word that I want to use, but that is how it feels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SR<\/strong>: Well there always is an interview in any project that does break you down. It isn\u2019t about Lost Highway.<\/em> It\u2019s the risks that this woman took with her career. I mean the story about Star Trek<\/em> really got to me. It\u2019s probably hard for people today to think about how popular Star Trek: The Next Generation<\/em> was in the \u201990s. But it was the place to be; it was, you know, the White Lotus<\/em> of its time. She\u2019s got that job and there they\u2019ve got Deep Space Nine<\/em>, they\u2019re doing movies and she says that could\u2019ve been my whole career and she\u2019s right. She could right now be working on Star Trek Discovery<\/em>. She said I gotta do something different and I\u2019m gonna take a chance and I want to go do this and just think of the successes. So as a person she moved me because she was willing to take chances. And, I hate incompetence. And we live in a time of incompetence. And when you meet someone who truly knows their craft, I am so\u2026 I come alive because I\u2019m like, oh here it is. There is confidence to me. She\u2019s the Ron Garcia of this book. That\u2019s just like, oh my gosh, if you wanna know about David Lynch you\u2019re not gonna get it from the actors. I feel like that\u2019s where people think you\u2019re gonna get it from and you\u2019re not, you\u2019re gonna get it from the crew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AG<\/strong>: Deepak Nayer is another great example of that. Perhaps my favorite story in The Fist of Love<\/em> is the one about a bet with Lynch. That was the one that had me cracking up hysterically. Any particular stories stand out to you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SR<\/strong>: I don\u2019t think I\u2019m exaggerating when I say, I don\u2019t think he answers one question I asked him. He was not a question and answer guy and I had specific questions. But to me those little moments and stories are when you really learn about David Lynch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I loved asking Peter Deming about filming in the hallway. You can just see that scene and some people might not even think about it. But there\u2019s a scene in the movie where Bill Pullman just walks down the hallway and disappears and hearing about how they had to get that shot for David is really interesting to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sabrina tells an incredible story about the sandstorm and how that damaged the film up till 2022. They were still removing the sand from the actual negative. They were being pelted with it and it was dangerous and intense. Peter Deming says it looks like a special effect and it\u2019s not but it made this beautiful effect on the film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AG<\/strong>: For the fan who is interested in the artistic side behind the camera, there\u2019s a lot of detail in several of these interviews about what it takes to create these moments that we see on screen that live on in our minds forever. Was that always part of your plan for The Fist of Love<\/em>, to provide a lot of insight into the technicalities behind the screen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SR<\/strong>: It was always the plan. I don\u2019t find it as interesting to get into what David Lynch means. You know, I just can\u2019t imagine writing a book that explains everything for you because it\u2019s really up to you. Now that being said I actually do give a theory for Lost Highway<\/em> more so than I have in other things, but it\u2019s mostly because, I think that\u2019s what Lost Highway<\/em> is. I don\u2019t even think it\u2019s a theory, I wouldn\u2019t even necessarily say I\u2019m putting forth some like, gigantic idea. I wanted to know how this person serviced the film. That\u2019s of interest to me, whether it\u2019s the actor\u2026 You know, it would have been nice to get the writer, but Barry Gifford has stopped talking about working with David Lynch, so I couldn\u2019t get an interview with him, but it\u2019s like to me it\u2019s not about spoiling the illusion, it\u2019s about learning how you do your job because again it goes back to I love competence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AG<\/strong>: Sabrina Sutherland\u2019s story is a true standout of the book. I think in our minds, we want to romanticize that her and Lynch have had this super tight relationship for 20 years. And she really tells a different story here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SR<\/strong>: I love and respect her so much. And I think that what she did on The Return<\/em>\u2014I don\u2019t know what you can compare it to, I mean, possibly whoever produced the Lord of The Rings<\/em> trilogy, but even they had some time in between. I just find her to be incredible. And she was really open with me that day. You know, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve interviewed anyone as much as I\u2019ve interviewed Sabrina and I\u2019m lucky and honored to have that. I feel like, Sabrina understands what I try to do, you know? So she felt comfortable with me, I think a little more open than than normal in this interview, really talking about their relationship. I don\u2019t remember, but I think we\u2019re on the phone for two hours. I mean it was a long interview and she has so much information about being there\u2026 but during Lost Highway<\/em>, I mean, she wouldn\u2019t go so far to say that David Lynch didn\u2019t like her, but she does say that when he saw her, he always made a grimacing face; it\u2019s just the sight of her made him do that. And yeah, I think people will probably be surprised, but that\u2019s where they started out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AG<\/strong>: Her part of the book in a lot of ways is the emotional core, coupled with certain things that Patricia Arquette says and we\u2019ll get into that here in a minute. But her journey with Lynch really sticks out to me as a highlight of this book. And I think that it\u2019s something that Twin Peaks<\/em> fans especially are going to realize we want to get into because it changes the way that we\u2019ve romanticized that relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SR<\/strong>: I agree. I also think that people look at Sabrina like a gatekeeper to Lynch and I think this will show that that isn\u2019t true. I mean, she\u2019s certainly like all of them\u2014they all protect David, that he must have a personality that makes you want to protect him\u2014but she is not more powerful than David Lynch as far as what is occurring, you know, it\u2019s still him. I think it\u2019s easy for people to blame Sabrina for things. I never have, I don\u2019t feel that way about her. She\u2019s always been open and kind and to me and is the only person in the entire Twin Peaks<\/em> community that has purchased every single copy of the Blue Rose<\/em> and every single book we\u2019ve done. I would give her these things but she\u2019s never asked for anything for free. And to me that says so much about her as a person and it\u2019s a big reason I respect her so much for what she does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AG<\/strong>: Let\u2019s shift gears over to Patricia Arquette. She speaks heavily of misogyny and she speaks of the perception of her nude scenes and I love her take on it. With these stories, were you familiar with them prior to interviewing her?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SR<\/strong>: I was very familiar with it and I will say that I was really nervous. I only had 30 minutes with her. I\u2019m a professional and if they tell me you only have 30 minutes, I only take 30 minutes. I knew I had to ask her about her nudity because I had seen the interviews that are in the documentary that\u2019s now been rereleased, Pretty as a Picture<\/em>. She had said something that really stuck with me, because she said she called David Lynch Satan, you know, you don\u2019t really hear Twin Peaks<\/em> actors telling stories about calling David Satan. It was because she was so uncomfortable doing new things. So I knew I had to bring it up but I thought how am I gonna in 30 minutes get her to trust me and not come off like some creepy guy who\u2019s asking these questions. Lucky for me, she brings up the whole thing really early and I didn\u2019t have to. So it worked out good in that sense for me, but she was so kind and so smart. She understood that character frontwards and backwards, she understood the importance of the nude scenes, she knew why they mattered to the character and the film. So it was definitely a highlight of my interviewing career, getting to talk to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AG<\/strong>: Some of the themes from her interview carry over into Natasha\u2019s interview. And I had jotted down the note, powerful women\u2014that phrase specifically comes up in Natasha interview and I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s a phrase that people associate with Lost Highway. But do you think after reading these stories that perhaps that public narrative might change that this film might be more associated with the idea of powerful woman?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SR<\/strong>: Unfortunately, no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s funny how much I\u2019ve covered this because it was the genesis of the Women of Lynch<\/em> book that David Bushman and I edited. I\u2019ve always thought it is insane to me that male critics couldn\u2019t see these powerful strong characters that David Lynch creates. I mean, Isabella Rossellini, Sheryl Lee, Naomi Watts, Laura Dern, Patricia Arquette\u2014he should be known for this. But he\u2019s not and it\u2019s not gonna change because everyone just assumes if this person is taking off their clothes, they have no power and they\u2019re just not listening to the story. You know, Patricia Arquette\u2019s character is doing the best she can to get out of the situation she\u2019s in with Mr. Eddy and she survives and really overtakes them, and pretty much all the men in the movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AG<\/strong>: Patricia is kind of the forgotten name on that list you just mentioned. I think we we tend to move from Sheryl to Isabella Rossellini to Laura Dern and a lot of times we leave out Patricia Arquette, which brings me to a big theme of your book that Lost Highway<\/em> is the most forgotten Lynch film. At first I wanted to challenge you on that. Then I read your film by film description of why each film was more remembered than Lost Highway<\/em>. My answer was Inland Empire<\/em> until I got to your description and I thought he\u2019s got me there. So my question here is, do you think there will ever be a time when Lost Highway<\/em> is not the most forgotten Lynch film?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SR<\/strong>: I don\u2019t. From my perspective, the Lost Highway<\/em> issue of the Blue Rose<\/em>, is the lowest selling issue. This book is not flying off the preorder shelves in the way that Fire Walk With Me<\/em> did, or Conversations with Mark Frost<\/em>, that are both on Twin Peaks. I mean people love their Twin Peaks<\/em>. And I just don\u2019t think there are fans of Lost Highway<\/em> in droves. It\u2019s because it\u2019s a hard film. It really is, it\u2019s difficult. But one of the things that I think and by all means, here you go Internet, come and get me: It\u2019s the best ending of a David Lynch film. I mean, I think I say in the book it\u2019s a cracker jack ending. He made a movie that ends in a car chase. Think of the last 20 minutes of The Return<\/em> where we\u2019re just sitting there watching them drive and it\u2019s so slow. Or even Mulholland Drive<\/em>\u2014that ending is just slow and its mood is heavy. Lost Highway once Bill Pullman comes back, it\u2019s just bing bang, bang\u2014that movie is flying. Go ahead and argue with me on a better ending in a Lynch movie than Lost Highway.<\/em> I think it\u2019s so satisfying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a tightness to Lost Highway<\/em>. He doesn\u2019t ever go off the track which I think is so impressive. There\u2019s not a ton of tangents and that\u2019s part of why we love David Lynch movies for the tangents, but that\u2019s something about Lost Highway <\/em>that I didn\u2019t notice until I studied it. This is my favorite Lynch film because it just moves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AG<\/strong>: Where did the idea come from for the tribute to Jack Nance at the end of The Fist of Love<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SR<\/strong>: Well, honestly, I didn\u2019t think I had like a killer ending to this book. In Fire Walk with Me<\/em>, that whole book is leading you to the Sheryl Lee interview and I had always set the book up that way. Well, in this book, all I could do was hope that I was getting Bill Pullman and he was gonna give me something that was good enough to be the ending. I\u2019ve always had the last chapter slated as Bill Pullman. It didn\u2019t happen. I was already editing and working on everything else. I realized that there wasn\u2019t that much about Jack Nance in the interviews with people. And I thought\u2014that\u2019s the emotional ending for this book because this is the last time with Jack Nance and Lynch worked together and he had been there from the beginning of Eraserhead<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would never say that I\u2019m friends with any of the people that I interview or the people in the world of Twin Peaks<\/em> but I am real life, honest to goodness friends with Charlotte Stewart. I can always call her at any time and we talk and you know, she\u2019s my buddy. She knew Jack so well, so I called her and asked her to talk to me about Jack. She gave me these great stories and then I emailed David Lynch and Mark Frost to get quotes from them and some cast members from Twin Peaks<\/em> and tried to just get some love back for Jack. Of course Mark Frost could not be a greater guy. He gave me something beautiful in like 10 minutes. I\u2019m still emailing people and I got something wonderful from Mark Frost. I can just never praise him enough as a person and as a creator. So I think it\u2019s a nice ending to the book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AG<\/strong>: In closing, what did you wanna say to people who are reading this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SR<\/strong>: I don\u2019t have the ego to think that I can change anyone\u2019s mind about a piece of art. That would be futile, a waste of time for anyone to do that when you write a book. But I\u2019m hoping that people who maybe just haven\u2019t thought about Lost Highway<\/em> the way they think about Blue Velvet or Mulholland Drive or Fire Walk With Me,<\/em> that they\u2019ll just give it another look, and give it a chance. Lynch really is saying something here, and it\u2019s beautiful. It really is a beautiful film and maybe Patricia Arquette was right when she said it would take years for people to appreciate this film. But I think here and now is the time to look at it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If David Lynch can follow up Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me with Lost Highway, then Scott Ryan can surely follow up his phenomenal book on Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me with The Fist of Love, his new book on Lost Highway right? While the order of Scott\u2019s books on the work of Lynch […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":160502600,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"saved_in_kubio":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[112],"class_list":["post-160502601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","tag-david-lynch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160502601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=160502601"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160502601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160502603,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160502601\/revisions\/160502603"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/160502600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=160502601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=160502601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=160502601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}