Patricia Arquette learns of David Lynch’s death during live interview

Patricia Arquette was on-camera Thursday when she found out that David Lynch, who directed her in the 1997 film Lost Highway, had died. She and the cast of Apple TV+ show Severance were being interviewed on SiriusXM’s Radio Andy.

“David was really incredible,” she said. “There’s nobody like him.”

The filmmaker’s family announced Thursday on social media that he had died at 78.

“There’s a big hole in the world now that he’s no longer with us,” they said in part. “But, as he would say, ‘Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.’ It’s a beautiful day with golden sunshine and blue skies all the way.”

No cause of death was given; however, Lynch talked about having been recently diagnosed with emphysema in the September issue of Sight & Sound.

Arquette costarred in the director’s 1997 film Lost Highway, which combined his signature elements of mystery and drama, with a dose of horror. Bill Pullman, Henry Rollins, and Balthazar Getty were among her costars, with Pullman portraying Arquette’s husband.

The Boyhood star noted that she and Getty had recently discussed Lynch.

“I was just at the Morocco Film Festival and the woman who ran it … she loves David, and they’re good friends. We were talking about David,” Arquette said, “and then I called my friend Balthazar, who was in Lost Highway with me, and I was like, ‘We gotta go see David.’ And, you know, I was trying to leave word for him. I was feeling like I needed to see David.”

As for Getty himself, he noted on his Instagram Stories that he had “lost a mentor and a friend.”

Ben Stiller, who’s an executive producer and director on Severance, told host Andy Cohen that his interactions with Lynch had been positive.

“I actually used to live across the street from him in Los Angeles,” Stiller said. “Very kind guy, from the times that I used to see him and, like, going trick-or-treating by his house.”

Stiller called the Twin Peaks co-creator “just a visionary director.”

“Like, I was able to take, you know, filmmaking in the commercial world and make art, too,” said Stiller, who’s stepped behind the camera for projects such as Tropic Thunder, Reality Bites, and Zoolander.

Cohen said he could see Lynch’s influence in Severance.

Actor Adam Scott agreed. “We owe a huge debt to…Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive…. Lost Highway is incredible. Elephant Man,” he said. “It goes on and on.”

They marveled over the fact that he was able to do some of the work he did on network TV.

Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly‘s free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.

One of Arquette’s peers, Naomi Watts, whose breakthrough was her part in 2001’s Mulholland Drive, shared her reaction to Lynch’s death on social media.

“My heart is broken,” she wrote in part. “My Buddy Dave… The world will not be the same without him. His creative mentorship was truly powerful. He put me on the map. The world I’d been trying to break into for ten plus years, flunking auditions left and right. Finally, I sat in front of a curious man, beaming with light, speaking words from another era, making me laugh and feel at ease. How did he even ‘see me’ when I was so well hidden, and I’d even lost sight of myself?! It wasn’t just his art that impacted me – his wisdom, humor, and love gave me a special sense of belief in myself I’d never accessed before.”

Watts raved about Lynch’s “exquisite storytelling, which elevated cinema and inspired generations of filmmakers across the globe.” She said she would be “forever grateful for his friendship.”

Isabella Rossellini, who gave her most famous performance as tortured lounge singer Dorothy Vallens in Blue Velvet and went on to date Lynch for years afterward, wrote on Instagram that “I loved him so much. Thanks for all your kind messages.”

Rossellini also had a supporting role in Wild at Heart, but she never worked with Lynch again after their 1991 breakup — although she was almost in Twin Peaks. “Isabella was supposed to be in Twin Peaks but she didn’t want to do it, so the character she was going to play became Josie Packard, who was played by Joan Chen,” Lynch wrote in Room to Dream, his 2018 memoir/biography written with journalist Kristine McKenna.

Back when Lynch was a young filmmaker who had just finished his surreal debut film Eraserhead, he was hired by none other than Mel Brooks to direct The Elephant Man, which Brooks produced through his company Brooksfilms. The film was nominated for multiple Oscars, including Best Director for Lynch, and elevated his career to a new level.

“David Lynch – A huge and sad loss,” Brooks wrote on Twitter. “A remarkably unique and very talented filmmaker. It was such a truly great pleasure to work with him. If his name was in the credits, you knew the film was really worth seeing. I will miss him.”

The note about naming in the credits, while true, also seems like a nod to the fact that Brooks took his name off of The Elephant Man as a producer, because he didn’t want audiences to mistakenly expect Lynch’s black-and-white biopic of Joseph Merrick to be a comedy.

Actress Alicia Witt, who made her film debut in Lynch’s 1984 film Dune, before she was even a teenager, wrote that she was “in shock.” In a lengthy tribute post, she wrote that she had last heard his voice on Dec. 5, 2023.

The actress, who also appeared in Lynch’s later works, wrote in her lengthy post that she considered Lynch “family.”

“Without david lynch, i have no idea what my life would look like,” Witt’s post read. “He taught me what it was to make a movie, how to conduct yourself on a set, what to expect from a director, the sort of respect that is paid and is given. the way you give yourself completely and trust entirely when a director who has a clear vision asks you to fly with him creatively, destination unknown to any save for him.”