I have a love/hate relationship with David Lynch. I admire what he stands for, I think he casts the most beautiful women in the world, and I think he sucks ass as a filmmaker. As in, one of the most terrible men to ever pick up a camera, right up there with Neil LaBute and Gregg Araki. A good friend of mine was the location sound mixer for the Twin Peaks B-unit. Which means he did sound for the infamous backwards-talking-dwarf scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guwl1w0yFGk And right before they shot, my buddy overheard Kyle McLachlan asking David for, you know, the reason for the scene. David looked at him and said "what?" Kyle continued - you know, David, what this scene means to the overall plot, to my character, why we're shooting it. Stuff like that. Things an actor might want to know to have an idea as to what sort of performance he needs to give in order to give the scene what it needs to add to the cohesive whole. David Lynch stared at Kyle McLachlan for a minute, then said "because it's fucking cool." Kyle looked at him a minute, nodded, and got on with the scene.
Thank you for some insight in to a classic scene. I just laughed A LOT while reading your comment. That sounds about how I imagine Lynch would react to such a question, and how McLachlan would respond too. I enjoy watching his work because It feels like something a kid would put together (in a good way). It's completely a result of what David Lynch thinks is cool and has nothing to do with what the masses will think is cool. Let's face it, the fact that Twin Peaks stayed on air as long as it did is a friggin' miracle. How cool that your friend worked on that scene. As for Kyle asking for "the reason", I always got the feeling that Lynch had no idea where the plot lines were going, which made it a really enjoyable series imo. There certainly wasn't any predictability. Such fun characters.
Hold that thought until you've seen this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_(1977_film)