Shortly after shooting the "Twin Peaks"' pilot episode, David Lynch gave her a small part in "Wild at Heart", as a girl injured in a car wreck, obsessed by the contents of her purse, alongside Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern. The film won the Golden Palm Award at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival. "David's direction was, 'Only think of this: bobby pins, lipstick, wallet, comb, that's it.' It's very abstract." "I just pictured her being able to do this," said Lynch of her scene, "she's like a broken China doll." David Lynch, who once described Sherilyn Fenn as "five feet of heaven in a ponytail" (quoting from a 1958 record by The Playmates), said to Banner, who used that description as the title of his article, "She's a mysterious girl and I think that actresses like her who have a mystery – where there's something hiding beneath the surface – are the really interesting ones." "He's very creative and unafraid of taking chances," she said of the director. "I really respect him. He's wonderful." Also during this period, Fenn appeared on the cover and in a nude pictorial in the December 1990 edition of "Playboy" magazine.