Actor Kyle MacLachlan was 23 and just barely out of drama school when he auditioned for his first movie, David Lynch's adaptation of the science fiction novel Dune. Released in 1984, the film was panned by critics, but it represented the beginning of MacLachlan's decades-long friendship and creative partnership with the auteur director.
"Having him near always made me feel better. ... I never felt there was judgment," MacLachlan says of Lynch. "It was always just joy and pleasure. But at the same time, you don't want to make a mistake."
MacLachlan would go on to star in Lynch's 1986 film Blue Velvet, and in his 1990 TV series Twin Peaks, cult classics that center on strange characters in unsettling places.
"I recognized pretty early on, particularly in Blue Velvet, that I was tasked with the job of going into these worlds, maintaining an innocence, which got singed," MacLachlan says. "Ultimately, I was the audience's guide into a very scary place. ... I'm sort of David's submersible. ... I'm tethered to the mothership, right? But then I'm now kind of on my own exploring this dark place."
In the new memoir Fictional Selves, MacLachlan reflects on his unconventional path in Hollywood and his collaborations with Lynch. He says the director's death in January 2025 left him in shock. But, he adds, "The beautiful thing about a memoir is that you then can go back and say, and 'From that I grew to this,' or 'I learned this,' or 'This changed in me.'"
"I didn't know how [Lynch] would feel about some of the stories that I tell, some of the difficult times that we went through as friends and as creatives," MacLachlan says. "He was such a private person, that to share those intimacies and those moments, I felt like he would need to be OK with that."
Interview highlights
On playing a psychopath on Twin Peaks: The Return and whether he ever felt he was getting absorbed into Lynch's evil characters
That was really the only time I felt, during that journey, that I felt like, "OK, I am now going to enter into a dark world." And that was a deliberate putting on of the character in the morning when I got to set, and that would happen as I was getting my makeup done, and then I would put on the wardrobe. And as I put on everything, I began to breathe like that character. At the end of the day, I was like, "I am now ready to let this guy go," and it was such a relief. I said, "I do not want to carry any of this energy back to my home, back to family." And I left and put him away in the closet, in the trailer, when I would get undressed and get back into my regular clothes.
On feeling a strong connection to the Dune books as a kid, and then having the opportunity to act in the movie
It really sort of sustained me through those very difficult junior high years and high school years [and then] to get a call on my answering machine saying, "There's a casting agent coming to Seattle and they want to meet you for the role of Paul in Dune." And I thought for sure this was a complete joke to go through that journey and to ultimately then find myself living in that universe — it's been 40 years or something, I don't think l'll ever figure out how that happened. ...
[The book series] Dune was a lifeline to me ... and sustained me, for the most part, through those years. I began to find another lifeline, preserver, whatever it is, floating in the ocean that I grabbed onto, which was performing, acting. [It] started in late junior high — eighth, ninth grade — and then carried over into high school.
On falling in love with his Blue Velvet co-star Laura Dern
Laura is just magical, and she's one of our great actresses, and she's always been a great actress. I don't think I've always been a great actor, I think I sort of cobbled things together and gotten better over the years. … But Laura was so present and so normal. And the things that Jeffrey and Sandy [in Blue Velvet] were experiencing together, Kyle and Laura were experiencing together as well. And that was my first time going through that. There's your character life, screen life and then there's real life and these were definitely blending and I didn't really know where one left and one picked up.
And that's the crazy thing about David [Lynch]: The worlds that he creates are real in his mind — they exist.Kyle MacLachlan
The fact that Laura and I fell in love — it just kind of happened, and honestly, David didn't necessarily discourage it either. [He recognized] that this is actually something that is gonna be good for the film and he really loved the idea that Jeffrey and Sandy were gonna be a couple. And that's the crazy thing about David: The worlds that he creates are real in his mind — they exist. So the fact that this was happening was very pleasing to him.
On acting opposite Dennis Hopper, who plays a deranged villain in Blue Velvet
Dennis was so charming, so lovely, so delightful, so soft spoken, so much fun around the set and during filming [of] the trailers and stuff. And the minute we were getting into the environment to shoot, he began to sort of descend into character. I didn't need to do anything. All I needed to do was stand there in the scene and react, basically, to what he was giving me, because it was incredibly frightening and manipulative. And I was truly in shock when I would be there. And when you're in shock like that, you're frozen, and there's nothing you can do. And you're just telling yourself, "Just don't do anything, and maybe you'll live." And it was just that. That was the dialogue that I had. And then we would cut, and he'd do that great, "Ha ha ha, gotcha!" with a Hopper laugh. And I was just like, "Oh my God, Dennis! You were so frightening." He said, "Yeah, I know." And I think he really, really loved the role. He really just, he played the heck out of that.
On his face getting more interesting with age
I think men have an easier time with it, aging, over women, but I do feel like the face is your tool, it's what you have to work with, your emotions, so everyone has to make those choices and everything, but I'm pretty happy with the way things are going. I've got added inspiration because my son is 18, so [I] darn well better stay fit to keep up with him.
Anna Bauman and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.
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