Laura Dern’s university forced her to drop out over Blue Velvet role but now teaches the film

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Kelly Rissman

US News Reporter

Laura Dern has revealed her university forced her to drop out after she secured a role in David Lynch’s 1986 film Blue Velvet.

The Jurassic Park actor, 57, starred in the noir-horror as a police chief’s daughter who develops an interest in a university student (Kyle MacLachlan) after he comes to her father having discovered a human ear in a vacant lot in their hometown in North Carolina.

Dern revealed she’s still angry that the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) wouldn’t let her continue studying if she took the role – yet now requires film students to watch Blue Velvet as part of their master’s programme.

Speaking on the Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast hosted by Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson, Dern said: “I was 17, so excited to get into UCLA. I was there for two days, and I had auditioned and got offered the role in Blue Velvet.”

The Little Women star explained she was “ecstatic” about getting a role in the film as she “worshipped” Lynch, who had already been nominated for an Oscar for his film The Elephant Man six years earlier.

When Dern went to the head of her university department to request a leave of absence to take on the Blue Velvet role, she was told she could “absolutely not” have the time away from her studies.

“I said, ‘I have this opportunity and he said, ‘Well, I’ll look at the script if you want to give me the script, but, you know, you’re not going to get a leave of absence. It’s not going to happen. It’s not a medical emergency,’” she recalled.

After Dern’s department head had read the Blue Velvet script he told her: “‘First of all, if you make this choice, you are no longer welcome at UCLA. You’ll be out. But secondly, having read this script, that you would give up your college education for this is insane.’”

At the time, Dern had already appeared in Peter Bogdanovich’s coming of age drama Mask, amongst other features, but it was Blue Velvet that catapulted her to fame and saw the start of a long term collaboration with Lynch – who received a best director Oscar nomination for the film.

The Academy Award-winning actor reflected: “Obviously, it was an incredibly shocking script.”

She added: “I will just end by saying after my two days, today, if you want to get a masters in film at that school, when you write a thesis there are three movies you are required to study. And you know what one of them is? [Blue Velvet].”

“P***es me off,” she admitted.