• Director David Lynch, 78, was diagnosed with emphysema in 2020
• Lynch smoked since he was 8, but stopped two years ago and wants to warn others to quit
• Lynch is an acclaimed director of films like Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive

Try Googling “David Lynch” and you’ll likely come upon photo after photo of the Academy Award-winning director with a cigarette in hand.  

For most of Lynch’s life, that’s exactly the image he wanted to portray. “A big important part of my life was smoking,” says Lynch, 78. “I loved the smell of tobacco, the taste of tobacco. I loved lighting cigarettes. It was part of being a painter and a filmmaker for me.”

But, he admits, “what you sow is what you reap.” Four years ago, the Mulholland Drive director was diagnosed with emphysema, a chronic lung condition that causes shortness of breath and which is a type of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD.

Today he relies on supplemental oxygen for anything more strenuous than a walk across the room — and he wants to warn other smokers that the same could happen to them.

“In the back of every smoker’s mind is the fact that it’s healthy, so you’re literally playing with fire,” he says. “It can bite you. I took a chance, and I got bit.”

Lynch’s habit was almost literally lifelong. A native of Montana whose father was a forestry research scientist for the Department of Agriculture, Lynch grew up in rural Idaho and Washington and began smoking at the age of 8.

By the time Lynch released his first indie film, the nightmarish Eraserhead in 1977, smoking was part of his brooding art-house persona. And cigarettes were an indelible part of his onscreen oeuvre. From 1986’s Blue Velvet to his groundbreaking ’90s TV series Twin Peaks and its 2017 revival, smoking was intertwined with Lynchian characters and his dreamlike cinematography.

Over the years Lynch tried to quit “many, many times, but when it got tough, I’d have that first cigarette, and it was a one-way trip to heaven,” here calls. “Then you’re back smoking again.”

In 2020, Lynch was diagnosed with emphysema, but even that alarming news wasn’t enough to get him to stop. It took two more years before he finally gave it up.

“I saw the writing on the wall. and it said, ‘You’re going to die in a week if you don’t stop,’” says Lynch, who has four children, including a 12-year-old daughter, Lula (he’s currently in the midst of a divorce from his fourth wife, Emily Stofle). “I could hardly move without gasping for air. Quitting was my only choice.”

He says his long-time practice of transcendental meditation helped him quit (he meditates twice a day every day and started a foundation dedicated to the practice) and keeps him optimistic. “I have a positive attitude focused on the body healing itself,” Lynch says. But, he admits, “it’s tough living with emphysema. I can hardly walk across a room. It’s like you’re walking around with a plastic bag around your head.”

The disease, which makes him more vulnerable to other respiratory illnesses, keeps him essentially homebound. “I never really liked going out before so it’s a nice excuse,” he jokes.

And it’s also kept him from doing one of his favorite things: “I love being on set,” he says. “I love being  right there, able to whisper to people.” But he’s also open to trying to direct remotely in the future.

Although the consequences of smoking have been a “big price to pay,” Lynch says, “I don’t regret it. It was important to me. I wish what every addict wishes for: that what we love is good for us.”

And he insists he wouldn’t change a thing about including cigarettes so frequently in his work. “I never thought about it as glamorizing it,” he says. “It was a part of life. Some characters would be smokers, just like in real life.”

But he says he hopes his own experience will be something of a morality tale for other smokers.“I really wanted to get this across: Think about it. You can quit these things that are going to end up killing you,” he says. “I owe it to them — and to myself — to say that.”