David Lynch won’t leave home over fears of catching Covid

Director says smoking-related emphysema means it would be ‘very bad for me to get sick’

Film-maker David Lynch has confined himself to his home, because he fears he could fall severely ill from Covid.
The director said he had taken the decision because emphysema had left him vulnerable to falling severely if he caught the virus. It means the 78-year-old will no longer be able to make films in person.
Lynch, whose credits include Eraserhead, Mulholland Drive and Twin Peaks, blamed his illness on decades of smoking.
“I’ve gotten emphysema from smoking for so long and so I’m homebound whether I like it or not. And now, because of Covid, it would be very bad for me to get sick, even with a cold,” he told Sight and Sound magazine.
“I’m homebound whether I like it or not. I can’t go out. And I can only walk a short distance before I’m out of oxygen.”
The disease threatens to end Lynch’s lengthy career.
There had been hopes that he would embark on another season of Twin Peaks, with the Showtime network saying it would be happy to run another series.
If he does direct any more films, he will do so remotely. “I wouldn’t like that so much,”, Lynch said. “I like to be amongst the things and get ideas there.”
Lynch began his career while he was a student at the American Film Institute in the 1970s and in 1977 made Eraserhead, his first feature film.
He has often posed in photoshoots holding a cigarette.
“Smoking was something that I absolutely loved, but in the end, it bit me,” he said.
“It was part of the art life for me – the tobacco and the smell of it, and lighting things and smoking and going back and sitting back and having a smoke and looking at your work, or thinking about things; nothing like it in this world is so beautiful.
“Meanwhile, it’s killing me. So I had to quit.”
Also known as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, emphysema is primarily caused by smoking, but it can also be triggered by exposure to dust at work or chemicals.
According to the World Health Organisation, emphysema is set to become the third leading cause of death across the globe.