SHE USED TO WORK IN A DINER
Stewart, an alum of David Lynch via Eraserhead and Twin Peaks (“No, I can’t say
a word about the upcoming Showtime series,” she giggles), was anxious to work
with Young and Roberts. She was a member of a thriving artistic community,
owning a store where “wine always flowed” and musicians like Young, Jim
Morrison, and Joni Mitchell hung out. She acted in student movies like Lynch’s
early American Film Institute work by night and co-starred in Little House on
the Prairie by day. “I always thought it was important for professional actors
to work with young directors—still do,” she says. Having Young as a novice
director, then, didn’t frighten her off.
ghoul. Hopper played the knife-wielding chef to Kirkland’s diner doyenne, and
the actress became just a little unnerved by the actor’s blade trickery. “Dennis
Stewart was thrilled when Young asked her to play bombshell waitress Charlotte
kept throwing this knife into the wall, then going up to the prop man to ask
Goodnight, part of a Greek chorus of waitresses and the one with whom Young’s
him to sharpen it—yeah, that got me nervous,” she says. “I asked Neil to ask
Switch was most in love. “[Young and Stockwell] let us make up all of our
Dennis not to do this, but Dennis persisted. When I went over to talk to him
dialogue, action, and character development,” she says. Stewart dolled up her
while he was playing with the knife, I reached up, his hand went down, and he
voluptuous character with heart-shaped everything (“pins, hankies, earrings”)
cut my first finger and tore a tendon.” Young instructed Kirkland to sue the
and spoke in old Young song titles (“Tonight’s the night, baby”). “It was all very
production, while Hopper was encouraged to seek treatment. He did, and he
improvisational; Neil would give us each scene’s basic thrust and let us run with
thrived going forward. “Dennis and I made amends,” laughs Kirkland. “He even
it. We would do that and then he’d write it down so that the script was penned
played my husband in [Edtv].”
after the shooting. It was a hoot.”
Kir