“Ultimately, I was the audience’s guide to a very scary place,” Kyle MacLachlan said of his roles in Blue velvet And Twin Peaks. He is shown above in London on December 3, 2025.
Scott A. Garfitt/Invision/AP
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Scott A. Garfitt/Invision/AP
Actor Kyle MacLachlan was 23 and barely out of drama school when he auditioned for his first film, the adaptation of David Lynch’s science fiction novel. Dune. Released in 1984, the film was critically panned, but it marked the beginning of a decades-long friendship and creative partnership between MacLachlan and the auteur director.
“Having him around always made me feel better. … I never felt like there was any judgment,” MacLachlan said of Lynch. “It was always just joy and fun. But at the same time, you can’t make a mistake.”
MacLachlan would star in Lynch’s 1986 film Blue velvetand in its 1990 television series Twin Peaks, cult classics centered around strange characters in disturbing places.
“I recognized quite early on, particularly in Blue velvet“, that I had a mission to enter these worlds, to maintain an innocence, which was sung,” says MacLachlan. “Ultimately, I was the audience’s guide to a very scary place. … I’m sort of David’s submersible. … I’m attached to the mothership, right? But then, I’m now kind of alone exploring this dark place.”
In the new memoir Fictional MeMacLachlan reflects on his unconventional journey to 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 can then look back and say, ‘From there I grew to this,’ or ‘I learned this,’ or ‘This changed me.'”
“I didn’t know how (Lynch) would feel about some of the stories I’m telling, some of the difficult times we’ve been through as friends and creatives,” MacLachlan said. “He was such a private person that in order to share those intimacies and moments, I felt like he had to be OK with that.”
Interview Highlights
By playing a psychopath on Twin Peaks: The Return and if he ever felt like he was absorbed by Lynch’s evil characters
That’s really the only time I felt on this journey that I was like, “Okay, now I’m going to enter a dark world.” And it was a deliberate enactment of the character in the morning when I arrived on set, and it was happening while I was putting on makeup and then putting on wardrobe. And as I put everything in, I started to breathe like this character. At the end of the day, I was like, “Now I’m ready to let this guy go,” and it was such a relief. I said, “I don’t want to bring this energy home to my family.” And I went and put it in the closet, in the trailer, when I was undressing and putting my regular clothes back on.
By feeling a strong connection with the Dune books when I was a child, then having the opportunity to act in the film
It really helped me get through those very difficult years of middle school and high school (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 it was a complete joke to go on this journey and finally find myself living in this universe – it’s been 40 years or something, I don’t think I’ll ever understand how this happened. …
(The book series) Dune has been a lifeline to me… and has sustained me, for the most part, throughout these years. I began to find another lifeline, a rescuer, whatever it was, floating in the ocean that I clung to, playing, acting. (It) started at the end of middle school – eighth, ninth grade – and then continued through high school.
“Having him around always made me feel better. … I never felt like there was any judgment,” MacLachlan, left, said of David Lynch. The two are pictured above in Los Angeles at Showtime’s premiere party. Twin Peaks: The Return on May 19, 2017.
Éric Charbonneau/Invision/AP
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Éric Charbonneau/Invision/AP
By falling in love with her 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’ve kind of tinkered with things and gotten better over the years. …But Laura was so present and so normal. And the things that Jeffrey and Sandy (in Blue velvet) lived together, Kyle and Laura also lived together. And it was the first time I experienced that. There’s your character’s life, your on-screen life and then there’s real life and those were definitely blending together and I didn’t really know where one left and the other picked up.
The fact that Laura and I fell in love – it just happened, and honestly, David didn’t necessarily deter her either. (He acknowledged) that it’s actually something that’s going to be good for the movie and he really loved the idea that Jeffrey and Sandy were going to be a couple. And that’s the crazy thing about David: the worlds he creates are real in his mind – they exist. So the fact that this was happening pleased him very much.
While starring alongside Dennis Hopper, who plays a deranged villain in Blue velvet
Dennis was so charming, so adorable, so delightful, so sweet, so much fun on set and while filming the trailers and everything else. And as soon as we got into the environment to shoot, he started to kind of become a character. I had nothing to do. All I had to do was stand there in the scene and basically react to what he was giving me, because it was incredibly creepy and manipulative. And I was really in shock when I was there. And when you’re in shock like that, you’re frozen and you can’t do anything. And you just say to yourself, “Don’t do anything, and maybe you’ll live.” » And that was just it. This is the dialogue I had. And then we cut, and he was like, “Ha ha ha, I got you!” with a Hopper laugh. And I was like, “Oh my God, Dennis! You were so scary.” He said, “Yeah, I know.” And I think he really, really loved the role. He really just, he played his butt off with it.
On his face which becomes more interesting with age
I think men have an easier time with aging than women, but I feel like the face is your tool, it’s what you have to work with, your emotions, so everyone has to make these choices and everything, but I’m pretty happy with the way things are going. I have extra inspiration because my son is 18, so I better stay in shape 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…
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