Jennifer Chambers Lynch (born April 7, 1968)^[1] is an American filmmaker. The daughter of filmmakerDavid Lynch, she made her directorial debut with the filmBoxing Helena in 1993. Following a troubled production, the film was a critical and commercial failure, with Lynch receiving aGolden Raspberry Award for Worst Director. The negative reception to her feature debut and controversy surrounding its release led to Lynch taking a 15-year hiatus from filmmaking.^[1][2]

This article is part of a series about David Lynch
Personal Early life Jennifer Lynch (daughter) Filmography Eraserhead The Elephant Man Dune Blue Velvet Twin Peaks Fire Walk with Me The Missing Pieces The Return Wild at Heart Lost Highway The Straight Story Mulholland Drive Inland Empire Discography Eraserhead BlueBOB The Air Is on Fire Twin Peaks Music: Season Two Music and More Polish Night Music Crazy Clown Time The Big Dream Thought Gang Cellophane Memories Bibliography Images Catching the Big Fish The Air Is on Fire Dark Night of the Soul Genealogies of Pain Room to Dream Characters Frank Booth Dale Cooper Laura Palmer Sheriff Harry Truman Shelly Johnson Donna Hayward Audrey Horne Maddy Ferguson Benjamin Horne Phillip Jeffries Bob Windom Earle Mike Leland Palmer Log Lady The Giant The Man from Another Place / The Arm Tommy Hill Bobby Briggs Related Unrealized projects Accolades received Cultural impact Frequent collaborators David Lynch Foundation
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Lynch returned to directing with 2008'sSurveillance. The film received mixed reviews, although it won the top prize at theSitges Film Festival.^[3] A year later, Lynch began work on her next film,Hisss, which she disowned after the production was completed without her involvement.^[4] Her fourth film,Chained, released in 2012, was met with a positive critical reception. Since 2012, Lynch has focused on directing episodes of television series, includingPsych,Teen Wolf,The Walking Dead,American Horror Story,Once Upon a Time,Hawaii Five-0,Elementary,The Strain,Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,9-1-1, andRatched.

Outside of her career as a director, Lynch wrote the bookThe Secret Diary of Laura Palmer in 1990. Told from the perspective of thecharacter of the same name from her father's television seriesTwin Peaks, the novel was a commercial success, reaching number four onThe New York Times paperback fiction best seller list that year.

Jennifer Chambers Lynch was born on April 7, 1968, inPhiladelphia,Pennsylvania. She is the daughter of artist and filmmakerDavid Lynch, through whom she has Finnish ancestry,^[5] and his first wife, painter Peggy Reavey (née Margaret Vosburgh Lentz). She began practicingTranscendental Meditation at the age of six.^[6] Lynch graduated from theInterlochen Art Academy where she studied visual arts and creative writing.

Lynch was educated in Los Angeles andMichigan atInterlochen Arts Academy. Together with her mother, Lynch made a brief appearance in her father's debut feature filmEraserhead, but her appearance was not included in the final cut. Lynch subsequently worked as aproduction assistant onBlue Velvet (1986), also directed by her father.

Lynch's commissioned screenplay forBoxing Helena, which she would later go on to direct, attracted many actresses, includingMadonna.^[7]Sherilyn Fenn, one of the stars of both her father's television seriesTwin Peaks and his filmWild at Heart, was ultimately cast as leading character Helena.Kim Basinger was also attached and was famously sued after resigning from the project.^[8] The controversy surrounding that case, as well asfeminist outcry overHelena's sadistic subject matter^[9][10] and accusations ofnepotism, accompanied the movie's critical drubbing upon its release in 1993.

In a 2009 interview withThe Hollywood Interview, Lynch mentions her reactions to the critical reception ofBoxing Helena:

I would love to know why people were so mad at me for telling a crazy fairy tale. I'm the first to say I didn't know what I was doing. I did the best I could at 19, and all these crazy things happened. The idea that the film was faulted when everyone involved worked so fucking hard and believed in me, and there were these adults believing in me, who was essentially a child…when the National Organization of Women slammed me, that was sort of the final straw. It was no wonder I put my legs behind my ears and got pregnant. (laughs) Not that I didn't love sex before then, but seriously. It was my child, essentially, who saved my life.^[1]

Following a lengthy hiatus, Lynch directedSurveillance,^[11] which won the top prize at theFestival de Cine de Sitges.^[12] A month later, Lynch became the first woman to receive theNew York City Horror Film Festival's Best Director award.^[13]

Lynch was announced as director of the filmNagin (the film is also known asHisss) that featured Bollywood actressMallika Sherawat, but the film that was released was not Lynch's work, even though the producers attached her name to the final product.^[14][4] Lynch explained in a 2012 interview:

Well, ultimately, I didn't get to make that film. I put my director's cut together, and the producers decided it was not what they wanted. They took it back to India. I never did any scoring or cutting or color-timing or any of the things you do to make the movie. They took the footage and changed it into what they wanted it to be. So it's not my film. I went to India and shot some footage, but I have nothing to do with the movie they made.^[4]

Lynch then directed and co-wrote the 2012 thriller filmChained, in whichVincent D'Onofrio stars as a cab-driving serial killer. It received mostly positive reviews from critics, with a 68% rating on review aggregator website,Rotten Tomatoes.

Lynch was scheduled to filmVisibility for theMotion Picture Corporation of America in 2011, but, as of August 2021, this project is not completed.^[15]

As of September 2012^[update], Lynch was preparingA Fall from Grace, a film set and filmed inSt. Louis and inspired by the OldChain of Rocks Bridge.^[4]

Lynch has directed episodes of many television series such asDahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,The Watcher,Jessica Jones,Finding Carter,Psych,Quantico,Teen Wolf,The Walking Dead,The Last Ship,Wayward Pines,American Horror Story,The Strain,^[16]Once Upon a Time,Hawaii Five-0 andAgents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Lynch authoredThe Secret Diary of Laura Palmer to accompany the television showTwin Peaks which was created by her fatherDavid Lynch andMark Frost.^[17]

In 1993, Lynch directed the music video "Living in the Rose" by the British rock bandNew Model Army.^[18]

On March 21, 2010, Lynch was a judge at the International Surrealist Film Festival^[19] and she worked as producer for the Corey Brandenstein natural horror filmThe Compound.^[20]

An Australian documentary titledDespite the Gods, which chronicles Lynch's struggle to make the filmHisss, was released in 2012. The documentary was shown at the Canadian International Documentary Festival and the program described the film: "Out of her depth shooting on location with an Indian crew and two top Bollywood stars, Lynch turns her production into a vehicle for her own self-actualization, paying no regard to timeline, budget or reality. As the story in front of the camera derails, the story behind the camera explodes".^[21] She eventually disownedHisss.^[22]

As of 2015, she is also a member of the board of advisers for the Hollywood Horror Museum.

Boxing Helena received incredibly scathing reviews^[23] upon its release and a Razzie Award for "Worst Director".^[24] Nevertheless, it was nominated for Grand Jury Prize in the Dramatic category at theSundance Film Festival.^[25][26]

Lynch revealed in a 2009 interview that she underwent three spinal surgeries following the release ofBoxing Helena due to a car accident that occurred when she was 19 years old. In the same interview, Lynch stated that she has a daughter.^[13]

• A French article about Jennifer Lynch's works (The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer andBoxing Helena)
• Jennifer Lynch at FEARnet
• Interview withHisss (2010) director Jennifer Chambers Lynch^{[permanent dead link‍]}
• Interview with director ofChained, Jennifer LynchArchived September 12, 2017, at theWayback Machine

• Jennifer Lynch atIMDb
• Jennifer Lynch atAllmovie

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