Ben Stiller Was Almost In This Classic David Lynch Movie

For the longest time during the filmmaking career of the dearly departed David Lynch, fans, critics, and even collaborators were mystified as to the artist's process. Some believed him to simply be weird for weirdness' sake, while others harbored the suspicion that Lynch was some galaxy-brained enigmatic genius who held all the answers but refused to give them. While the latter belief was partially true in some cases, more often than not, Lynch was merely following his own creative muse, spurred on by the man's fervent belief in the practice of Transcendental Meditation. Through his T.M., as in his dreams, Lynch would come upon an idea (or, even more likely, an image) that would compel him, and thus would find a way to insert it in whatever movie he was working on at the time. It's erroneous to say that Lynch was entirely ignorant of cinema of the past or present — his Masterclass is proof enough of this — yet Lynch was certainly not solely influenced by other films, nor was he all that invested in the politics of Hollywood.

Actor Justin Theroux discovered Lynch's blissful, innocent ignorance firsthand when he was working on the filmmaker's failed-TV-pilot-turned-Cannes Best Director winner, "Mulholland Dr." By the late '90s, Theroux had already made a name for himself appearing in daring independent movies like "I Shot Andy Warhol" and "American Psycho" as well as making a dent in the comedy scene with appearances in "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion" and "Zoolander" in 2001. That latter credit is significant, given how it's the first time that Theroux worked with actor/director Ben Stiller, whom he met several years earlier while doing a play with Jeanne Tripplehorn, whom Stiller was dating at the time. While Theroux and Stiller were trying to get several collaborative projects going, the former was cast in "Mulholland Dr." as Adam Kesher, a fictional hot young director who finds himself forced to cast a certain actress. During shooting, Stiller came to the "Mulholland Dr." set to visit Theroux, and thanks to Lynch being unaware of the comedian, he almost accidentally ended up with a part in the movie.

According to a 2001 profile on Theroux in the Washington Times, the actor observed Lynch being "so wonderfully unplugged from the Hollywood scene" while working on "Mulholland Dr.," so much so that Theroux thought "he might find it difficult to name one or two directors, let alone borrow any aspects of their lives or personalities" for the film. The proof of this came when Stiller arrived on set to visit Theroux, an incident which led to Stiller nearly ending up with a background acting gig on the movie:

"Here's an example. Ben Stiller came to visit me on the set one day. David thought he was an extra. He even offered him a job as an extra when we explained that Ben was just a friend and wasn't really looking for movie work. It shows you how completely in his own world David is."

As amusing as it is for Lynch to not recognize Stiller or even really know of him, what's more egregious is Stiller failing to make an appearance in "Mulholland Dr.," which sounds like it's more on his shoulders than Lynch's. Even if Lynch was unaware of "The Cable Guy" or "There's Something About Mary," one believes that he would've found a cool way of inserting Stiller into the world of "Mulholland Dr." somehow. In a film which also features people like Ann Miller, Robert Forster, and Billy Ray Cyrus, it would've been fitting to see the guy who'd go on to make "Severance" crop up amongst the surrealism.

It's perhaps this missed opportunity that was on Stiller's mind when he shot his cameo appearance for the first season of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's series "Extras." In the episode, Stiller plays a fictional, satirized version of himself, an egotistical tyrant who's directing an emotionally fraught war movie. Gervais' character, Andy, is hired as an extra on the movie, but sees an opportunity to get a spoken line by befriending the man whose life inspired the film, Goran (Boris Boscovic). Unfortunately, an altercation on set leads to Andy defending Goran and then dressing the narcissistic Stiller down, which results in Andy being kicked off the film. 

Perhaps Stiller, who talked himself out of appearing in one of David Lynch's best movies, was looking to point out his own foolishness a little in this way.