Gland Prix

Diane Selwyn

Mulholland Drive remains one of my favorite movies. Yesterday while browsing around on Netflix I inadvertently found two interesting bits of trivia surrounding one of the personaes played by Naomi Watts.

Watts plays Betty Elms and Diane Selwyn. They are alter egos of one another but also reflections and dreams of one another. Both are actresses. On Netflix I saw a cover for a movie that had, in the background, The Selwyn Theater.

That Selwyn theater, now the American Airlines Theater according to wikipedia, was located in NYC. There is another Selwyn theater: The Harris and Selwyn Theaters in Chicago.

The connection between theaters and Diane Selwyn is clear.

The derivation of the name Selwyn itself also interests me:

Selwyn is originally an Anglo-Saxon name, also occasionally spelt Selwin, deriving from ‘Sel’ (castle/house) & ‘wyn/win’ (friend), roughly meaning “friend in the house” or “friend in the castle”.

That’s also from Wikipedia.

And, of course, not only are Betty Elms and Diane Selwyn of the same host and could be considered companions in the dream world. There is also the pairing of Diane and Rita (aka Camilla Rhodes) played by Laura Harring. They become friends in Betty’s apartment building when Rita cannot remember who she truly is.