Terry Crews Appears Briefly as 'Street Person #3' in David Lynch’s Inland Empire

Terry Crews has a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo in David Lynch’s last narrative feature film, Inland Empire, playing an unhoused man credited as “Street Person #3” in the 2006 release. The brief scene is set on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, with Laura Dern’s Nikki Grace dropped into a conversation between two street dwellers; Crews mostly appears in the background, looking over his shoulder and delivering almost no dialogue while conveying a tired, weathered stare.

Crews—described in the piece as a former football player-turned-supporting comedy actor and television host known for roles on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Everybody Hates Chris and appearances on America’s Got Talent—had earlier bit parts such as President Camacho in Idiocracy, White Chicks and The Longest Yard, which the article notes makes his appearance in a prestige auteur’s film feel unexpected.

The article frames Inland Empire as a maximal example of Lynch’s surreal tendencies: a 180-minute, MiniDV-shot fever dream starring Laura Dern in which her character Nikki transforms into Susan Blue and drifts through parallel universes, sitcoms with rabbits and other inscrutable imagery; Lynch is credited as director and writer.

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