David Lynch believes Laura Dern's children should wait a little longer before watching his 1990 film Wild at Heart.
The dark comedy crime film stars Dern and Nicolas Cage as Lula Pace Fortune and Sailor Ripley, two lovers who try to escape the people hired by Marietta Fortune, Lula's mother, to kill Sailor.
Marietta is played in the movie by Dern's real-life mother, Diane Ladd – and it's her character Lynch had in mind when he urged Dern's 17-year-old son Ellery to watch a few more years before watching it.
Dern, who graces the cover of Vanity Fair's February issue, was asked as part of the accompanying profile whether her children (she also has a 14-year-old daughter named Jaya) have seen some of her more "sexually frank" work.
The actor told the magazine they haven't and recounted the moment Lynch told Ellery to stay away from Wild at Heart until the age of 30, during a recent visit at Dern's house.
“And Ellery goes, ‘Is it because my mom’s kind of sassy in the movie?,’ Dern recounted, "and David goes, ‘No, it’s not you seeing your mother I’m worried about, it’s seeing your grandmother!’"
The remark prompted Dern to remember one of Ladd's racier scenes.
"And suddenly I’m seeing this image of my mom painting her face red and going up to my boyfriend and saying, ‘How’d you like to f*** Lula’s momma?!,’ and oh my God, that’s my children’s grandmother! F***!” she added.
Dern wil return as Renata Klein in season two of Big Little Lies, which is scheduled to premiere in 2019. She also plays Marmee March in the Greta Gerwig's adaptation of Little Women, set to premiere in December 2019.
