The Elephant Man (film) me hate acting." Because of the strain on the actor, he worked alternate days. Lynch originally wanted Jack Nance for the title character. "But it just wasn't in the cards," Lynch says; the role went to John Hurt after Brooks, Lynch and Sanger saw his performance in "The Naked Civil Servant" as Quentin Crisp. Lynch bookended the film with surrealist sequences centered around Merrick's mother and her death. Lynch used Samuel Barber’s "Adagio for Strings" to underline the end of the film and Merrick's own death. The film's composer, John Morris, argued against using the music, stating that "this piece
The Elephant Man (film) is going to be used over and over and over again in the future...And every time it’s used in a movie it’s going to diminish the effect of the scene." When Lynch and Sanger screened "The Elephant Man" for Brooks after they returned from England with a cut, Brooks suggested some minor cuts but told them that the film would be released as they made it. There had been a play about Merrick on Broadway called "The Elephant Man", which was enjoying a successful run on Broadway at the time of the film's production. The producers sued Brooksfilms over the