Michael Cera -- perhaps known best for playing George Michael Bluth in Arrested Development -- was a strange delight for viewers of David Lynch's Twin Peaks: The Return when he made a surprise cameo as "Wally Brando," the lost-in-time doppelganger of Marlon Brando's rebel biker character from 1953's The Wild One. The distinctly Brando-esque character fits naturally within Lynch's aesthetically surreal television noir of diner-dwelling psychics, rockabilly roadhouses, and beautiful greaser outlaws set in a backwoods time capsule town. The real question is, how did Michael Cera get there?
Cera answered the question in a recent interview with THR:
"The full story is that I did a transcendental meditation course with some friends, and a woman there said she was from the David Lynch Foundation and invited us to meditate with David Lynch. So about a month later, we went to David’s house, which is the house from Lost Highway, and at first it was me and David. He was so sweet and welcoming, but I was still just so confused about why he was having us, why we were allowed to be there and meet him. I was so excited. So we meditated with him for about 20 minutes. And then a couple of years later, I got invited to do this Twin Peaks scene. And my friend Eric Edelstein, who also meditated with us, got a part. I only worked with David for about two hours when we shot that scene, but it was so much fun."
David Lynch Foundation
It turns out that what Cera and the filmmaker behind Eraserhead, Mulholland Drive, and the original cult-beloved Twin Peaks series have in common is a quest for peace.
The David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace was founded in 2005 to provide children and adults everywhere access to meditation and mindfulness resources designed to promote inner wellbeing.
On the foundation's website, Lynch writes:
"I started Transcendental Meditation® in 1973 and have not missed a single meditation ever since. Twice a day, every day. It has given me effortless access to unlimited reserves of energy, creativity and happiness deep within. This level of life is sometimes called “pure consciousness”—it is a treasury. And this level of life is deep within us all.
But I had no idea how powerful and profound this technique could be until I saw firsthand how it was being practiced by young children in inner-city schools, veterans who suffer the living hell of post-traumatic stress and women and girls who are survivors of terrible violence."
Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Ellen DeGeneres, and Martin Scorsese have all spoken about the creative process-enhancing and stress-reducing benefits they've received with a regular meditation practice taught by David Lynch's foundation.