In a reflective mood, actor Kyle MacLachlan spent the first portion of his appearance at SXSW recalling memories of the great American filmmaker David Lynch, who died in January this year at age 78.
They first worked together on the 1984 science fiction film Dune, when MacLachlan was a virtually known 25-year-old. Preparing for the role “was a severe learning curve and then Dune came out and didn’t do very well and I was kind of back at ground zero. And then David came and said, ‘well, that’s okay,’ and we could move on from that.
“In LA I would go by and visit him frequently, and we would meet outside and I came down these stairs to where he was sitting and it was always, “Kyle!” Giving me like a big hand jitter and a wave like this and it just made my heart warm, just seeing him there.
“He was always just so friendly and so in the moment, you know? It is that kind of seeing him there and saying, Hey, Kyle, or I would come in and I would meet him up at the painting studio he had, where he would love to be and it was sort of indoor/outdoor setting. Off the side was the outdoor area where he would have his canvases and painting. It felt like it was very much like a little cave and he had all this stuff there and it was all very fun.”
“We shared a love of coffee and that’s for real. We bonded on coffee and in later years we would reminisce when we got together. We would talk about Dune, and some of the experiences that happened. And most fun is when, if Laura Dern would come over, sometimes we’d go together and we’d sit and just tell stories.” Dern rose to prominence in Lynch’s films Blue Velvet (1986) and Wild at Heart (1990). MacLachlan also appeared in Blue Velvet; he and Dern began dating then until 1989.
“We all had different perspectives, of course, and that time would just fly. It was really magical with him. And every time I was in front of the camera with David, it felt magical, just because the environment he created was so special.
“And particularly when we did Twin Peaks: The Return, we were all older. I think I came to the understanding just how special this was going to be, and so every day I went to work, I was joyful. I mean, I’d wake up at four in the morning. I’m so happy. I kept it going to work. And I’m driving to work and then seeing David there, made it so special in my heart.
“And we did some of the sequences that were really challenging when I was playing the Mr. C character,” which was the evil doppelganger of Dale Cooper in the original Twin Peaks TV series, 25 years before The Return was filmed In 2017. “You know, he was, I felt he was right there just sustaining me, helping me.”
Lynch created Dougie, a character to trap Dale Cooper in; it is known as a tulpa. MacLachlan said playing “Dougie was really almost more challenging than Mr. C, because it took so much courage to just do nothing. And I just– and I would sit there and have a good day, but I don’t know if this is working. Lynch said, ‘Kyle, it’s fine. He’s working.’
“So it was a constant sort of dialogue between us, even though we weren’t speaking. We just had this communication. And it just made the experience so special. He would use certain phrases like, ‘I feel a wind.’ That’s what he would think of for me. And I would just interpret that.
It was more like just kind of a cool vibe. But I don’t know exactly how that translated.” When Lynch was setting up a scene “It was like you felt like… like he knew exactly what he wanted. And if he wasn’t sure, he would take a moment, just kind of think about it. And there’s just a quiet moment, we’d all be standing there and then he’d say, ‘okay, we’re gonna do this as well.’
“Like in some of the scenes and setups, they were just one or two cameras. His visual sense was extraordinary of course, and just the way that he filled the frame. And when a director has that confidence, you know it’s like as an actor you’re like, okay you can relax. You don’t have to feel ‘Oh, do I have to do anything else?’ You didn’t have to do anything else with David.”
Lead Photo by Dr C Cunningham
Second photo: Lynch and MacLachlan in 2017 at the Twin Peaks premiere at Ace Hotel in Los Angeles. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.