David Lynch revealed in a new interview that he was diagnosed with emphysema and can no longer “leave the house” due to fears of getting COVID.

“I’ve gotten emphysema from smoking for so long and so I’m homebound whether I like it or not. … And now, because of COVID, it would be very bad for me to get sick, even with a cold,” he told Sight and Sound in the magazine’s September cover story. Lynch said he “can only walk a short distance before” he runs “out of oxygen.”

The legendary filmmaker behind such works as Eraserhead, Mulholland Drive and the Twin Peaks series added that it’s unlikely he will direct again, but if he does, he would not be on set.

“I would try to do it remotely, if it comes to it,” Lynch said, admitting, “I wouldn’t like that so much.”

In a post on X several hours after the story’s publication, Lynch clarified that he “enjoyed smoking very much” but has now quit for more than two years.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Yes, I have emphysema from my many years of smoking. I have to say that I enjoyed smoking very much, and I do love tobacco - the smell of it, lighting cigarettes on fire, smoking them - but there is a price to pay for this enjoyment, and the price for me is…

— David Lynch (@DAVID_LYNCH) August 5, 2024

“Recently I had many tests and the good news is that I am in excellent shape except for emphysema,” Lynch continued. “I am filled with happiness, and I will never retire. I want you all to know that I really appreciate your concern.”

Lynch’s most recent full-length production was the 18-episode TV series Twin Peaks: The Return, which premiered on Showtime in 2017, and his last feature film was Inland Empire, released in 2006. Lynch’s unrealised projects include a feature film script Antelope Don’t Run No More, apparently completed in 2010, and a rumoured Netflix series called Wisteria/Unrecorded Night, supposedly in development in 2020.

In the Sight and Sound interview, Lynch also discussed a complicated relationship with the cause of his health problems, saying: “Smoking was something that I absolutely loved, but in the end, it bit me. It was part of the art life for me: the tobacco and the smell of it, and lighting things and smoking and going back and sitting back and having a smoke and looking at your work, or thinking about things; nothing like