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Inland Empire sounds like the classic actor's nightmare — showing up to work not knowing your lines, what your character is, or even what movie you're shooting.
But it was also the luxury of being forced to be in the moment. There was never a time when I had to hint at something about to come or something that had come before, because there was no before or after. No matter how how hard you work to be in the moment as an actor, there is still that desire to inform an audience. And life doesn't work that way. Which is why we watch the news and go, "He seemed like the nicest, most easygoing guy, why did he shoot up the McDonald's?" There's a beauty in not knowing what's about to happen in a film, because we never know what's about to happen in real life.

You certainly can't overthink your part.
And it's so easy to overthink something. It's so easy to fall into a trap of wanting the audience to get it. What's great about working with David is that there's nothing to get. He believes in the intelligence of an audience. He believes if you're standing in front of a painting, and someone has a completely different interpretation of that paiting than you do, you're both right. That's what he fell in love with about film. People say, "Wow, you went for this crazy idea? Didn't you think, ugh, it's gonna be three hours and it doesn't have a plot?" I'm like, you know what? David Lynch decided to do a digital experiment on his own dime. He decided to get the cheapest, crudest camera he could get. He decided to distribute the movie himself, and create a new film transfer process for film. And I was happy to go along for the ride. People get it, they don't get it, they get some of it, they're deeply upset, they're laughing, they don't know if they should be laughing. It's what's great about the world he creates. So forget being part of it. I'm just so glad, as a viewer, to be taken somewhere I haven't gone in some time.

David Lynch has always been know as such a beautiful filmmaker, someone whose movies — even if you don't like or understand them — look incredible. So it's unusual to see him working in digital.
And I think it looks unbelievable. The crudeness of the film — a quality you might call dirty — gives it its own beauty. I didn't realize it would look that beautiful, because it didn't have real lighting. We used one light that someone was holding. We used flashlights. David and I shot scenes where it was just the two of us in a room. At this point in our careers, that was very restorative.

You must get asked all the time: What does the movie mean? What does this part mean?
As a meditator, David loves intuition and discovery and mystery. He loves that you have to explore your way through it. You have to escape the self-consciousness: "Am I right? Is this what it means? Is this what the critics say it means?" I think people have a fear that he's sitting back somewhere going, "They are so wrong. They're not getting it." He loves hearing when someone has an interpretation that he hadn't thought of. I'm sure my idea of what the story is about is different than David's, or anybody else's, but the essence is probably similar. David gives one line to describe any movie. In this case, it's "A woman in trouble." And if you explore that line, it's a huge part of the story. People asked me, when I was working on it, what it reminded me of, and I kept thinking of Catherine Deneuve in Polanski's Replusion. How it fits into a plot, for anybody else, I don't know. Somebody said to me, the rabbits — what do they mean?

There's even controvery about whether those are rabbits or donkeys.
My mother [actress Diane Ladd] is sure they're donkeys. But for an actor, if a director tells you less, it's a gift. You don't want to be told, "She's at the funeral, being hysterical." Then you just become an actor trying to weep, instead of thinking, "Well, I don't know what you do at a funeral. Maybe you laugh. Maybe you're shocked, and you feel nothing." David is so great for actors to work with, because he creates this extreme world — this world that almost doesn't exist, it's so extreme — but wants you to live authentically in that world. There's no right answer. You need to stay simple and honest. If a person wants to go to acting school, they should work with David Lynch.

You've done quite a few sex scenes now. Let's look at the sex scene in Inland Empire. What are the things about the character you're trying to get across, or the cliches you want to avoid?
That scene is really two heads talking. David isn't trying to create something erotic or sexually titillating with some naked bodies, but it's about, I think, two heads trying to communicate and get inside each other and hear. She keeps talking nonsense, and he doesn't know what she's talking about, or who she's talking to. And she doesn't know what she's talking about or who she's talking to. I loved that scene because it's unusual-looking. Actually, I think it's titillating to see two heads in the sexual act. You use your own imagination. And what's interesting in the shooting process is how dismantled it is from the act. It's two clothed people sitting next to each other. For that scene, we had to be in an odd position to get the camera angle. But it's always that way. Love scenes are always the least sexual experience an actor can have. People are taped and miked. It's hysterical.

You've done some nudity in your films — did you ever consider using a body double?
I've had a body double. And I really only did some nudity in Wild at Heart. There's one shot in Rambling Rose, but it's more of a joke. Oddly, that movie feels very naked to me, even though I'm not really naked in it. When I did the nudity in Wild at Heart, I wasn't comfortable, but I did it out of a trust in David. I haven't done it since, so obviously I didn't crave that experience. I don't know, it feels private. I think if an actor defines it as something irreplaceable to the film. . . There's a shot of my dad [actor Bruce Dern], naked, running into the ocean at the end of Coming Home, when he's going to kill himself. And his nudity is so devastating. The shot would have never been the same if he hadn't been willing to do it. This man, and his bare body, running into the ocean to die. And it took Hal Ashby thinking of it, and my dad's willingness to do it. And the rawness of that is irreplaceable.

As an actor, you're known for a lack of self-consciousness.
Usually when I hear that, I go, "Oh, really?" And after this movie, I'm like, "Uh-huh." Cause it is all out there in this movie.

Is a lack of vanity something that comes naturally to you?
I struggle with it. Sure, because I'm a woman living in this age, age being a dirty word, and I'm an actor. But you know what? If my mom deserves credit for anything, this is it. She loved looking pretty and she loves clothes with a deep passion, as I do. But acting wasn't a job that had anything to do with how she looked. That was separate. The way she looked was about her love life or doing a TV interview on Johnny Carson. It wasn't about a movie. Ever. And I was raised in that environment. With Ellen Burstyn, and Gena Rowlands, and Jean Stapleton, and Maureen Stapleton, and Colleen Dewhurst, and Shelley Winters, my godmother. It was a very different generation of women. And they suited up to expose women's frailties and humanity and power and rage and sweetness. And I love them for it. They didn't do covers of Vogue. Models did that. When I was first starring in a movie, it was unthinkable that I would do press by being in a fashion magazine. The first fashion cover I did was, like, ten years into my career. And even then, it was mostly supermodels on the cover. Now it's all actresses.

What turned the tide?
Publishing. In the supermodel era, they sold more copies. Then publishing discovered people were more interested in a movie star, and who she was dating. Now it's an actress' job to play a character in a movie, but also to be beautiful, because she's required to be on the cover of Vogue. So maybe a little Botox is important, even though you're only thirty-four.

It's not as if vanity didn't exist in my mom's generation. They were all considering facelifts, but in their sixties. To hear a woman in her forties talking about wrinkles? Ugh. It's a devastating time to be a young woman, I fear, as the mother of young girl. It's gross. Its disgusting. Someone asked me the other day, "Did you ever think about having a facelift?" And I said, "I didn't until everybody had their faces redone!"

This is your sixth movie with your mom. And it's funny, because whenever you hear a mother and a daughter are starring in a movie, you think it'll be some saccharine story. And here are the two of you, acting in the weirdest shit together.
I know, I'm so lucky. The only one we mapped out that way was Rambling Rose. That was the one movie where we acted together, and we were talking about real things together, and that was a very beautiful, and heavy, and amazing experience. With Wild at Heart, David just called me and said, "I wanna let you know, I'm asking your mom to play your mom."

What did you think?
I was kind of mindblown. I remember the first day of shooting, we were doing this sequence where my mom tries to seduce my boyfriend, who is Nicolas Cage, and I don't remember what my mom was doing exactly, but it was something sick and crazy. And Nic leans in to me and he says, in a way only Nicolas Cage can, "That's your real mom." I exploded laughing for, like, ten minutes. It shocked us both, her painting her face red. My grandma came to the premiere, and when the movie ended, David was like, "What does Grandma Mary think?" And Grandma Mary walks over, and she's like, "That movie was so cute!"

-nerve.com