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Home > Celestial Blood > 'Eyes on the donut, not the hole:’ How David Lynch taught Eli Roth to focus


	Podcast:		Celestial Blood
	Episode:		'Eyes on the donut, not the hole:’ How David Lynch taught Eli Roth to focus
	Category:		Arts
	Duration:		00:00:00
	Publish Date:		2025-08-09 16:00:00
	Description:		Director, actor, producer, and writer Eli Roth made his directorial debut in 2002 with the cult classic Cabin Fever. Since then, he’s carved out his spot among horror legends with utterly depraved additions like Hostel, The Green Inferno, and Knock Knock . He’s also flexed his acting chops in films like Aftershock and Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. More recently, he’s shifted gears into the world of music. Earlier this year, he released Eli Roth’s Red Light Disco: Dancefloor Seduction From Italian Sexploitation Cinema. The double album features 20 tracks from ‘70s and ‘80s Italian sex comedies, handpicked by Roth from an expansive library of film music. More: Eli Roth talks cinematic deep cuts… and disco(!) (The Treatment, 2025) For his Treat, Roth pays tribute to his late mentor, our friend and former weather reporter , director David Lynch. Their paths first crossed when Roth was a young NYU film student. What began as a research assignment by way of a mutual connection, eventually blossomed into a lifelong mentorship. Lynch, or “Mr. X” as Roth affectionately called him, taught Roth how to unleash his creativity, think outside the box, and sharpen his focus. Roth has carried Lynch’s advice “Keep your eye on the donut, not the hole” through every film he’s directed since. More: My friend David Lynch This segment has been edited and condensed for clarity. I was very close with David [Lynch]. He was probably the closest thing—him and Tarantino—were the closest thing[s] I ever had to mentor[s]. I met David when I was 20 years old. I was at NYU, in the film school, and I was working for a theater and film producer named Fred Zolo. David wanted to do a project for Broadway about the scientist Nikola Tesla. Fred arranges this lunch for us because David needed research, and I'll never forget it. We went to Sardi's, which is like the theater restaurant of 44th Street. I'm like, 20 years old or 21, probably a junior… maybe a senior at NYU. I sit down, and there's David Lynch. I'm giddy because Twin Peaks is my favorite thing, and I saw Blue Velvet when I was 14 and it changed the way I saw movies. And then, of course, Eraserhead and even Dune and The Elephant Man. Everything about David Lynch, I was completely obsessed with. So I told him, “You know, I'll put together this team of researchers. I'm sure any NYU student would jump at the chance to work for you, but we can't say your name.” I said, “We're going to call you Mr. X.” He's like, “Mr. X. Beautiful!” So we became the “X team.” I wound up spending five years doing this research for him. It went long beyond school. I just kind of used it as an excuse to stay in touch with him and then when I finally moved out to LA in 1999, he said: “Eli, come over to my house and we'll have a chat and a cup of Joe. And we'll tell you what we're up to.” I sat down with him and he goes, “davidlynch.com. It's going to be beautiful. We're going on the net. And, you know, you're so organized, maybe you could help me out with some things.” So I wound up going to his house every day and just filming the craziest, craziest things you can imagine. Basically, any idea that David Lynch had we'd just shoot it. We didn't even question it. So there's one that we put on, that's out on YouTube now, called Pierre and Sonny Jim. [It’s] us doing puppet shows. And my god, we'd be quoting Stanley Kubrick. If he needed a cable he's like: “Feed me Mandrake.” Like, we're quoting Dr. Strangelove. He was just so funny, David. Before I went to make Cabin Fever, I said: “Okay, David. It's my first film. Is there one piece of advice that I should take on[to] set above all others?” He said, “Yes. Keep your eye on the donut, not the hole.” I was like, “what do you mean?” And he's like, “well, you know the donut, that's the information recorded in front of those 24 squares per second.” Obviously, that was [the] film. He [continues]: “The hole is all the other bullshit and it's like a vacuum. You'll just get sucked right in it. So your job as the director is to make sure you keep your eye on the donut, not the hole.” And I took it on all my films. I tell everyone at the beginning that's our mantra: “I am the donut. Not the hole.” It's still hard to talk about him, thinking of him in the past tense, because he was such an important force in my life. I love him dearly and I miss him everyday.
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