Long before Alicia Witt became a Hallmark Channel fan favorite with such Christmas movies as “A Very Merry Mix-Up” and “The Mistletoe Inn,” she appeared in far darker fare.
In fact, when looking back at her earlier screen credits, even before starring in 1990s sitcom “Cybill,” her very first screen role was in 1984’s “Dune,” directed by the late David Lynch, when she was just seven,
Witt became a favorite of the late director, who then cast the child actor in his groundbreaking TV series “Twin Peaks” — and then brought her back when he revived the weirder-than-weird series in 2017.
In a new interview, Witt — who is also an accomplished singer, songwriter and musician — reveals how her lifelong association with Lynch influenced her new album, “Between Heaven and Earth.”
‘The Most Original Soul I’d Ever Known’
As Witt tells MusicRadar, “Between Heaven and Earth” was envisioned as a tribute to Lynch, commemorating the ways in which he shaped her life, both personally and professionally.
Recorded live in New York, the album speaks to the relationship she had with the director over the years.
“I felt immediately that I had met the most original soul I’d ever known,” she recalls of first meeting Lynch at age seven.
“And it obviously had nothing to do with who he was as a filmmaker because at that age I had no awareness of him as a filmmaker, and I certainly hadn’t seen ‘The Elephant Man’ or ‘Eraserhead,'” she adds.
Their Meeting Was ‘Destiny’
Looking back, Witt has come to realize that being cast in “Dune,” which propelled Lynch into her life, was no coincidence.
“I think it was destiny,” she declares.
“I’m not exaggerating when I say David Lynch changed my life in every way a life can be changed because how can I even measure not only having found my way to a life as an actor, but far more than that, I think he changed the very chemistry of who I am as a person because his influence was so strong at such a young age.”
‘He Was Very Present’
When writing the songs that appear on “Between Heaven and Earth,” Lynch loomed large.
“Everything about this album was inspired by David Lynch,” Witt shares, revealing that she felt she was still communicating with him after his passing.
“[I felt that] David’s spirit truly was helping to bring it forward as well, he was very present to me in meditations,” she says. “We would speak for about a year after he passed on — he was very, very present.”
Lynch, she reiterates, “was very present while we were making the album … Not where every song is about him per se, but it’s about his influence, his approach to life.”
‘Going With the Flow’
The album’s stylistic shifts, she explains, were influenced by the philosophy that she gleaned from Lynch.
“I think David was an expert in that mind frame — going with the flow you might say. You can recognize when you’re meant to drift a different direction,” she shares.
“I think David made me feel this sense of, or helped encourage, I should say, this this sense of that line between delusion and dreamy,” she adds, referencing the dreamlike quality of the album. “Before I met him, I probably thought there was something not right about me, but after meeting David, I thought ‘No, this is not only right, but it’s my superpower!’”
‘The Director’
One song that didn’t make it onto the album was “The Director,” which she describes a the most overt tribute to Lynch within “Between Heaven and Earth.”
Recording the song was an overwhelmingly emotional experience for her.
“I was definitely holding back tears when I recorded ‘The Director.’ I was sad I suppose that I wouldn’t have another chance to sit and have coffee with him, and talk about life,” she reflects.
“So, as I recorded ‘The Director’ and also some of these other songs, I was also shedding tears of such gratitude. Like I was finally understanding the extent to which David was — and still is — a part of every aspect of how my brain works and how I think about life,” she continues. “[Feeling his presence in the studio] took away the sadness of knowing that in human form I could never send him an email to share this, but I feel that not only has he heard the album, but he truly helped create the album, and that he was right there with us.”
