I was hoping to get a chance to ask Hurley that (understanding that he may well not know since that was before his time) but never got an opportunity, alas.

Which character that voice is supposed to be on the other side of Mr. C’s call is one of The Return’s thornier questions, and certainly isn’t getting resolved in this thread (indeed, its ambiguity is part of the point), but it’s nonetheless interesting to receive new information about it 8 yrs later

That angle is particularly relevant to The Return given its oneiric throughlines.

In Hurley’s case, the fact that he was the Sound/Music Supervisor is of additional salience, given the seemingly critical (if nebulous) role “sounds” play in The Return’s web of meaning.

Lynch appreciated the suggestive resonance of having creators of the film themselves appear as characters—think, e.g., Cori Glazer, Script Supervisor for Mulholland Dr., appearing as the Blue-Haired “Silencio” lady. Or Lynch as Gordon Cole, the dreamer who lives inside the dream.

While fans have previously guessed at any number of performers providing these voices with some technical manipulation (Lynch himself, Sheryl Lee, Grace Z., Al S., Sherilyn F., etc.), I think there’s a certain Lynchian logic in them being Hurley, the TP Sound & Music Supervisor…

Hurley added that there are “quite a number of things” he voiced in The Return, mentioning the voice of Johnny Horne’s teddy bear, but leaving the rest unspecified.

For what it’s worth, my guess is that Hurley also provides the voice for The Evolution of the Arm…

Hurley: “That’s kind of me there. And that was always a confusing plot point to me, because I’m thinking it needed to be Phillip - he’s supposedly calling Phillip Jeffries… It’s so hard sort of figuring out his stuff in general, but I feel like some of those clues are like there…”

More from Kyle (via NPR's Wild Card) re: his last meeting w Lynch:
"He loved a chocolate croissant...So we'd go to Porto's, a great bakery in the valley, & get some croissant there & bring it back, open up the box, & he'd be like, 'YEAH!'...he'd just stuff it in <makes gobbling sounds>. So much fun.

Peter Deming on Lynch's unfinished projects: "In the time I knew him, there were half a dozen projects that almost got off the ground, & I never found out exactly why they didn’t, but I know it’s down to control. If he doesn’t get final cut, he won’t do it."
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Peter Deming on UNRECORDED NIGHT: "We went on one location scout, David hired a produdction designer, & was talking to Laura [Dern] & Naomi [Watts] about parts in it, & then COVID happened.... I know Jennifer [Lynch] & the kids are talking about publishing it as a book."
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Correction, fwiw: the final selling price for all the script copies was actually $760,500. (I failed to realize that the Lost Highway and Wild at Heart lots still hadn't yet come up for final bidding when I posted the initial tweet.)

Finally, some interesting thoughts by Dean Hurley on Lynch's "DIY approach" (where Hurley reveals that he himself is the voice of Johnny Horne's bear saying "hello Johnny, how are you today?").
[Recommend reading the article, linked in QT above, which also interviews Frost...]

Via the same article (linked above):
Dana Ashbrook—"he was aware of his own eccentricity. In [The Return] there’s a scene where I go and talk to Norma...during rehearsal he comes up and pulls me aside and says, ‘hey, I can’t believe I’m telling you this, but could you be less weird?’ [laughs]

Yeah, I thought of mentioning the FWWM drafts too, but it was unclear to me how much included in the auction lot was of previously unreleased/unleaked material... I have to believe that at a minimum this all will be in his public archives. (Possibly some published too, along with Unrecorded Night.)

Presumably these scripts for Dream of the Bovine and the updated Ronnie Rocket will one day be available to the public (via his archives, at a minimum), but in the meantime only the highest bidders have access to these significant works from David's writing ouevre.

The only pieces in the entire auction that give me pause are the never-before-seen-by-the-public draft scripts for unproduced films: Dream of the Bovine, and the 2012 redraft of Ronnie Rocket (the 80s script versions have long been available online).

I do not mean to suggest that the show will ever have Mark waking up from a dream, or some such, or that the show is not also intended to represent other things as well. It’s all complicated; hopefully I can write something formally on it all eventually.

The severed floors—and the show generally—are, among other things, an allegory for Mark’s inner life. (In some senses this is obvious; the premise of the show is a clear metaphor for psychological repression.) In at least that sense, the answer to your first two questions are Yes.