DIRECTED BY DAVID LYNCH: THE ELEPHANT MAN (1980)
“I go in that morning and this woman comes up to me and says, “Anthony Hopkins wants to see you.” So I go into his room at the end of this long hallway and I’m pale, hadn’t had any sleep, and he tears into me and says, among many other things, that I have no right to direct this picture. I said, “Tony, I’m sorry you feel this way, but I’m the director of this picture and I’m going to keep on directing it,” and I left. In a weird way Tony Hopkins was right — I had no right to direct The Elephant Man. I came from Missoula, Montana, and this is a Victorian drama with these giant stars, and all I’d done is this small film that ten people went to see — it was crazy. But there I was. That film was a baptism of fire.”
