Laura Dern: Touching post on David Lynch’s birthday

Actress Laura Dern (57) mourns the loss of her long-time colleague and friend David Lynch (1946-2025), who would have turned 79 on January 20th. However, the filmmaker died a few days before his birthday on January 15.

“Happy birthday treat,” the Oscar winner wrote in , which shows the two together. With that, she used the nickname he had once given her, . Dern added, “I will love and miss you every day for the rest of my life.”

The 57-year-old was one of many with whom Lynch frequently collaborated, including Naomi Watts (56), Justin Theroux (53) and Isabella Rossellini (72). The four-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker first cast Dern in the 1986 mystery thriller “Blue Velvet.” She was just 17 years old at the time.

The duo reunited in 1990 for “Wild Heart,” in which Dern played a leading role alongside Nicolas Cage (61). That same year, she and Cage also starred in “Industrial Symphony No. 1”, an avant-garde concert performance. She also appeared in Lynch’s 2006 experimental feature film Inland Empire and his 2017 revival of the hit series Twin Peaks.

In 2006, Lynch campaigned vehemently for Dern to receive an Oscar nomination for her work in the film “Inland Empire.” He sat with a live cow on a street corner in Los Angeles in front of a sign praising its performance and the thoughtfulness of passersby.

In an interview with Greta Gerwig (41) on Inside the Actors Studio in 2019, Dern said it was Lynch who helped her avoid being limited to a specific film role. “It was an incredible gift to have a filmmaker who knows you say to you,” she told “Entertainment Tonight” at the time, adding in a Lynch imitation, “‘Now I want you to be the complete opposite of that play what you did last time.'”