Trivia / Blue Velvet

• Actor-Inspired Element: Frank's tank was originally meant to be filled with Helium. Dennis Hopper turned out to be an experienced drug user and claimed to have insight into Booth's choice of drug, which was most definitely not helium. According to Hopper, the drug in question was amyl nitrite, an angina medication that is used as a recreational inhalant in the disco club scene.
  • Reflecting on the role some years later, Hopper lamented having made this change, saying that Frank would have been far more bizarre and frightening if, instead of using the gas to get high, he carried the tank around for no other reason than to alter his voice. David Lynch, on the other hand, preferred the change, believing that the use of helium would cause audiences to laugh, which would be undesirable.
  • Dean Stockwell was allowed to come up with most of Ben's appearance and mannerisms, since the character wasn't described in great detail in the script. He also stated that he played Ben as a heroin addict, which is why he has such Dissonant Serenity and seems always on the verge of falling asleep.
• Career Resurrection:
  • The movie was a major resurrection for Dennis Hopper, who transitioned into successful villain roles such as Howard Payne in Speed.
  • The prominent role of "In Dreams" triggered one for Roy Orbison, who did not authorize the use of the song or know it was going to be used. David Lynch was able to find a loophole to get around his lack of permission. Orbison initially found it shocking and mortifying, but changed his mind after re-watching the film and later collaborated with Lynch to re-record it.
  • And finally the film did so for Lynch himself, whose last film, Dune (1984), almost destroyed his career.
• Enforced Method Acting: Isabella Rossellini actually was naked under her velvet robe when she did the "ritualistic rape scene", a fact that Dennis Hopper was not aware of, until the cameras started rolling and his co-actor opened her legs for him to kneel between. This scene was the very first time the two of them ever worked together.
• Throw It In!: The light that Dean Stockwell as Ben uses as a 'microphone' was a work light that happened to be on the set. Without having been asked to, Stockwell picked it up and started miming with it, and Lynch was so struck by the effect that he left it in the film.
• What Could Have Been:
  • As the film was conceived as a comeback film after the failure of Dune (1984), David Lynch has opined publicly over the years that the film would never have been made had he taken up George Lucas' offer to direct Return of the Jedi instead of doing Dune.
  • Lynch filmed a four-hour movie, which was cut down to one hour fifty-nine minutes by the studio. Over fifty minutes of the lost footage was found and included in the Blu-Ray release, but that leaves between forty to sixty minutes still missing as of this writing.
  • In the original screenplay, the sex scene between Jeffrey and Dorothy was longer; Jeffrey spins the propeller on her son's hat when Dorothy undresses him and Jeffrey learns Frank is coming. Dorothy thinks Jeffrey is her husband Don and cries when saying Jeffrey's name.
  • Sandy was originally to be played by Molly Ringwald, but she turned down the role, fearing it would taint her family-friendly image.
  • Val Kilmer was offered the role of Jeffrey. He turned it down, saying that the script he read "was straight-out, hardcore pornography before page 30". He later stated that if he had been given a copy of the script that Lynch eventually filmed, he would have gladly taken the part.
  • Helen Mirren was Lynch's alternate choice for Dorothy. Other candidates included Karen Allen, Rebecca De Mornay, Jodie Foster, Debbie Harry, Helen Hunt, Anjelica Huston, Diane Keaton, Sylvia Kristel, Cybill Shepherd, Sissy Spacek, Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver and Debra Winger.
  • Harry Dean Stanton turned down the chance to be Frank Booth. He'd go on to work with Lynch anyway, with a leading role in Lynch's short film The Cowboy and the Frenchman as well as minor roles in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me and The Straight Story, but still. Steven Berkoff turned it down, saying that there was nothing in the part except destruction. Robert Loggia was offered the role and was kept waiting three hours before meeting Lynch and on being told that Dennis Hopper had been given the role. Loggia blew his top, described as “an extremely profane rant.” Lynch never forgot it and it became the basis of Mr Eddy’s road rage in Lost Highway. Willem Dafoe was also considered.
  • A few scenes were initially intended to have This Mortal Coil's Cover Version of Tim Buckley's "Song to the Siren" but the licensing costs proved to be too high. Angelo Badalamenti opted to record a new song with Julee Cruise, "Mysteries of Love," instead. The two would reunite with David Lynch to provide music for Twin Peaks.^note "Song to the Siren" would eventually be prominently used in Lynch's later film Lost Highway
• Word of God: It's rare for Lynch to definitively confirm something in one of his movies that's presented ambiguously, but he has stated multiple times that he sees Frank Booth as sincerely being in love with Dorothy, but his rage prevents him from showing it in a healthy way.
• Word of Saint Paul: Dennis Hopper stated in the August 1987 issue of the magazine The Face that Lynch told him that the meaning of the ending where Dorothy is with her son, looking off pensively as part of "Blue Velvet" plays in the background, was to show the audience that despite everything Frank put Dorothy through, she had fallen for him, in a way, and would continue to long for him after his death. Hopper could often be an Unreliable Narrator, but with Lynch's repeated affirmations of Frank's feelings for Dorothy, it lends this some credence.
• Write What You Know: In interviews, David Lynch has told of how Dorothy's nude scene was inspired by a childhood memory of his, when he and his brother, going home from school, came across a dazed naked woman walking down the street. Lynch has said that it made him cry and left a profound impression on him.

---