I’ve met many famous directors, but I’ll never forget David Lynch

Growing up with a passion for cinema, I was awed by The Elephant Man, dazzled by Blue Velvet and, in 1990, overwhelmed by what would become the definitive masterwork of filmmaker David Lynch: Twin Peaks.

Knowing I was such a fan of Lynch’s work, the Australian actor Eamon Farren – who Lynch had cast as the unstable Richard Horne in his Twin Peaks reboot in 2017 – gifted me the bag of Lynch’s own-brand coffee that the legendary director had given him.

To understand David Lynch, you have to go past the film and TV, the painting and composing, and the meditation – you have to understand his relationship with damned fine coffee.

In Mulholland Drive there are enduring images of the diner, Winkie’s. In Twin Peaks it was coffee and cherry pie for Agent Cooper at the Double R. Behind the clouds of cigarette smoke, or the wisps of morning mist, there was always coffee.

In person, Lynch was nothing like the fantastical worlds he created. He was an easygoing man, grounded in things as earthly as libertarian politics, meditation and that coffee: Organic David Lynch House Blend.

In conversation he was good-humoured and engaging. I interviewed him when Twin Peaks premiered. And we met again, 27 years later, to discuss the reboot. Those encounters were formal – journalist and director meeting for an interview.

Still, Lynch always took the time to engage, before and after. He always asked what I was watching on TV, or what movies I had seen. It was small talk, but he paid attention to the answers. He sought discussion, on everything from politics to pop culture.

He had the easy manner of a man who was, to some extent, unaware of who was who in the room, or where everyone sat on the Hollywood pecking order. Which made all of us – journalist, publicist, assistant and waiter – equally fascinating to him.