Patricia Arquette was nominated for an Emmy for her performance in the first season of Severance, and she returns in the ongoing continuation of the show. The actress sees some similarities between the series and David Lynch's 1997 mystical noir Lost Highway, in which she played a dual female lead. She considers the film one of the greatest challenges of her career in many ways.
Like many of Lynch’s works, Lost Highway was not a major success upon its release, with critics scratching their heads, and the legendary Roger Ebert even calling it a nonsensical jumble. However, it gradually gained a cult following and is now regarded as one of the great films of its era and one of Lynch's masterpieces. "I’m so glad that it’s recognized now because it really is a very interesting film," Arquette said in a recent interview with IndieWire.
In Lost Highway, the actress played both the brutally murdered wife of Bill Pullman’s character Fred Madison and a seductive woman who appears after the murder. Arquette didn’t fully understand the connection between the two women, and when she asked the director for concrete guidance, she didn’t get a clear answer.
"I asked David if I was playing two different people, or if one of them was a ghost. He replied, 'What do you think, Patrish?'" the actress recalled. Relying on her own intuition, she decided to portray the characters through the eyes of a misogynistic man, but one who is "woke enough" to realize that his views aren’t entirely right.
The Oscar-winning actress considers her work with David Lynch one of the most defining experiences of her career, though it took a lot of courage to take on the role:
"It was the hardest film I’ve ever done because I’ve always been shy, especially in a sexual sense. Maybe because of all the trauma. Even when I was little, I never let anyone see me naked. I used to shower in the dark for years, alone, by candlelight. Lost Highway was the bravest thing I could have done. I was so tired of carrying that burden, that fear. It was such a powerful experience for me. I met my own shadow."
