One Hoo brought her dad to class for show-and-tell

November 14, 2025
Peter Deming giving a talk to a UVA film class.

“Mulholland Drive” cinematographer Peter Deming speaks to students in Sean Duncan’s course, The Films of David Lynch. Deming’s daughter is a second-year student at UVA. (Photo by Lathan Goumas, University Communications)

To movie lovers around the world, David Lynch was an auteur with a singular vision and talent, the man behind films like “Mulholland Drive” and “Eraserhead.” 

To Kate Deming, he was just “Uncle David.”

“For me, it was like, ‘Oh, that’s just Uncle David,’” Deming, a second-year student at the University of Virginia, said. “But I knew he was so special, not only for my dad, but for everyone in the creative industry.”

Deming is not related to the legendary director, who died in January. But her father, cinematographer Peter Deming, worked on several of Lynch’s projects, including “Lost Highway,” “Mulholland Drive” and “Twin Peaks: The Return.” Peter Deming came to Grounds earlier this month to speak to a course on Lynch’s films and respond to audience questions after a screening of “Mulholland Drive.”

Peter and Kate Deming

Peter and Kate Deming pose together for a photo. The father-daughter pair spent significant time on movie sets together. (Photo by Lathan Goumas, University Communications)

Kate discovered the course, taught by assistant professor Sean Duncan, when she was planning her schedule for the fall. She didn’t enroll, but she sent the link to her father immediately and suggested he reach out to Duncan. Shortly before classes started, he did.

Many college kids might cringe at the thought of having their dad visit them at school and speak to a roomful of their peers. Not so for Kate.

“I’m my dad’s biggest fan,” she said. “I’m always bragging about him, and I think he’s too humble. Growing up on set and getting to see him in action, I just always want to give him the most credit and get him to share what he loves to do.”

Peter brought Kate on her first set when she was just 3 months old, a commercial shoot for the beauty brand Estée Lauder. She was, he recalled, “pretty cranky.” But she came to love visiting her father on set.

“‘Oz the Great and Powerful’ was the first set I remember. It filmed in Michigan over the summer,” Kate, a New York City native, said. “I had my summer camps I went to while I was visiting my dad, but being on set was an activity on its own. It’s just inspiring to see my dad in action.”

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“Oz the Great and Powerful,” with its theme park-like set and G rating, was about as well-suited for a child as the film industry gets. So was “X-Men: The New Mutants,” where Kate befriended stars like Anya Taylor-Joy and Maisie Williams.

“The cast was all very young, around 20, and she was 11. Her first day, she was intimidated – she didn’t want to talk to the cast,” Peter said. “By the last day, the cast would come in and go right toward her and not talk to anyone else.” 

You introduce a child to films like “Evil Dead II” and “Lost Highway” “very carefully,” Peter said. But Kate became used to dealing with weighty issues at an early age. After all, Lynch would ask her those questions directly.

Kate would see Lynch at Christmas parties and when she accompanied her father on trips to Los Angeles. During one visit, the three met for coffee at Lynch’s house, and Lynch peppered her with questions.

“It was always very philosophical. He loved probing questions. It was never, ‘How are you doing in school?’ It was always an adventure of a conversation,” Kate said.

Assistant Professor Sean Duncan speaking to a media studies class with Deming talking on the films of David Lynch.

Deming, left, visits a media studies class on David Lynch’s films. His daughter suggested he reach out to assistant professor Sean Duncan, right, when she saw the class listing.

Peter said working with Lynch wasn’t much different. The director’s work resists interpretation, as did the director himself, instead trusting audience members to come to their own understandings. 

“You obviously read the material, but you don’t talk about a lot in preparation before shooting,” Peter said. “On shooting days, you discover things about the movie that you’re reacting to on a daily basis.”

One of his favorite stories about Lynch comes from an early shooting day for “Lost Highway,” the first film they made together.

“I had a preconceived notion about the scene before we started filming. Then I got on set, and I realized I was completely wrong. I learned that day to wait and see what David was doing before we embarked on capturing it,” he said.

He and his daughter spent considerable time on one of Lynch’s last projects as a writer and director, “Twin Peaks: The Return.” It was a lengthy shoot.

“It was so special,” she said.

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Alice Berry

University News Associate Office of University Communications

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