Kyle MacLachlan (Directed by David Lynch)

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Episode Overview

Podcast: Fail Better with David Duchovny
Guest: Kyle MacLachlan (Actor, longtime collaborator with David Lynch)
Release Date: November 18, 2025
Main Theme:
David Duchovny invites Kyle MacLachlan to discuss their experiences with artistic risk, failure, and the creative partnership with director David Lynch—especially through "Dune," "Blue Velvet," and "Twin Peaks." The conversation weaves through childhood influences, navigating success and failure in Hollywood, the impact of Lynch's mentorship, reflecting on creative loss, and Kyle's ventures beyond acting.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Upbringing, Early Guidance, and Defining Success

• Family Influence:

  • Kyle describes a small-town upbringing in Yakima, Washington, with parents who each shaped his path differently.

    “I didn't know what an L.A. was. Seattle to us was the big city.” – MacLachlan [02:59]

  • His father, despite pressure to be a lawyer, ultimately followed his passion into business, influencing Kyle's own approach to career choices.
  • His mother’s love for local theater nudged Kyle towards acting:

    “She got involved in some teenage theater programs. She would have me come down... at first I didn't want to do it, but then I realized, there are a lot of kids my age, a lot of girls...” – MacLachlan [07:09]

• On Success and Parental Expectations:
  Kyle reflects that his personal sense of success was inherited less as a mandate and more as a permission to follow one’s passion, learning from his father’s rebellion.

• Finding Acting:

  • Initially hesitant, Kyle eventually found acting to be his area of greatest aptitude in high school, inspired by both his mother and his own experiences in community theater.

2. Breaking into Hollywood and "Dune" as a Learning Experience

• Serendipity of Early Success:

  • Duchovny marvels at the rarity of landing the lead in “Dune” as his very first film audition:

    “Dune was the first screenplay I ever read. Blue Velvet was the second.” – MacLachlan [28:14]

• On "Dune" as Both Breakthrough and Failure:
  Despite the opportunity, “Dune” was considered a failure by Hollywood standards, and the aftermath was disorienting for a young actor:

  “People were telling me this is going to change your life forever. …I have no concept of what that is… contractually, I wasn’t allowed to do film or television until 'Dune' was released… finished filming in ‘83, released in ‘84. I got nothing to do.” – MacLachlan [28:57]

  • The film’s underperformance canceled future plans, leaving Kyle on uncertain ground—forced to adapt and re-audition, encountering the harsh realities of the industry.

• The "Fear is the Mind Killer" Lesson:
  Kyle shares how Herbert’s iconic "Dune" mantra shaped his attitude toward fear and failure:

  “Fear is the mind killer... I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me… and only I will remain. It was a teaching moment for me.” – MacLachlan [30:32]

3. Creative Partnership with David Lynch

• Directing Style & Influence:
  Kyle illustrates Lynch’s non-literal, poetic direction and its impact:

  “He would direct with qualities or images. ‘Elvis’ was a direction. ‘More Elvis.’ …There’s no parsing it. The minute you talk about it, you’re starting to take away the magic.” – MacLachlan [14:22]

• Lynch’s Approach:
  Duchovny remarks on Lynch’s uniqueness:

  “He’s sui generis. …You either take him whole or you don’t. You can’t chew him up.” – Duchovny [16:45]

• Trust and Creative Growth:
  Kyle internalized Lynch’s abstract approach, moving from over-explanation to intuitive performance, especially in later "Twin Peaks":

  “What he creates is to be experienced, not necessarily understood intellectually… I wanted to dissect everything at first, but I learned that wasn’t his favorite form of dialogue.” – MacLachlan [35:26]

4. Reflections on Twin Peaks & Ensemble Dynamics

• On Twin Peaks' Phenomenon:

  • Both reflect on the show's explosive cultural impact:

    “That show was a meteor... it was on a network, which is crazy, because it’s still too wild for even streamers. I don’t think it gets made today.” – Duchovny [21:42]

• Leadership and Kindness on Set:
  Duchovny expresses gratitude for Kyle's inclusivity:

  “You personally were so kind … when it's your set, you set the tone. You were so kind and supportive and welcoming. … It was a prime example of how to be that guy on set.” – Duchovny [19:06]

5. Navigating Roles, Audition Failures & Creative Stretch

• After Dune – Reentering the Grind:

  • Despite his “big break,” Kyle faced numerous failed auditions:

    “I started auditioning and I was awful, really awful. …Every audition, nothing was like meeting David.” – MacLachlan [32:19]

• Blue Velvet and Beyond:

  • Lynch’s continued commitment—even after Dune’s failure—was pivotal:

    “David, bless his heart, came back with Blue Velvet... he was very keen on having me as Jeffrey.” – MacLachlan [34:14]

• On 'The Return' and Playing Against Type:

  • Kyle describes the fear and satisfaction of stretching into the villainous Mr. C and the empty Dougie:

    “Dougie was just courage, I had to believe that nothing was everything. I’m literally doing nothing. How long can you do nothing?” – MacLachlan [41:14]

  • Playing Mr. C was taxing—he didn’t like “getting into him” every day, but it was a creative necessity.

6. Loss, Legacy, and Artistic Identity

• Lynch as Creator and Loss:

  • Duchovny asks about the feeling of losing a key collaborator:

    “What does that feel like, to have that kind of simpatico with a fellow creator? And what does it feel like to lose that person?” – Duchovny [42:10]

  • Kyle’s response is heartfelt:

    “David for me was always in his home, not far from where I live, actually working… so it’s kind of strange… I know he’s gone, but, in my mind, is he gone?... There’s an appreciation and a gratitude that comes in and kind of smacks you in the face.” – MacLachlan [43:19, 45:46]

  • He credits his collaboration for broadening his opportunities, and only later—after maturity—did he see it as a blessing (not a limitation) and as something to cherish.

• Self-Recognition and Stability:

  • Duchovny pushes Kyle to see the mutuality in the collaboration:

    “Have you ever given yourself the space to say David was lucky to find me?” – Duchovny [46:07]

  • Kyle admits it's not his nature, but recognizes in hindsight his gift for grounding Lynch’s worlds:

    “I feel like I was a really good clay to work [with]… I’m the person carrying an audience into a world that is unusual and scary and maybe slightly off kilter.” – MacLachlan [46:47]

7. Embracing New Mediums: Podcasting and Generational Curiosity

• New Podcast – 'What Are We Even Doing?':

  • Kyle seeks to connect with Gen Z and young millennial creators, discussing process and impact:

    “I sit down with Gen Z and young millennials and we have a conversation about their creative process… how they use social to amplify their platform… and what are their ultimate goals.” – MacLachlan [53:15]

  • He expresses openness to learning from the younger generation, partly inspired by his son:

    “I never…been looking back…saying, well, who inspires me that’s younger than me? And there’s plenty.” – MacLachlan [55:53]

• Podcasting Philosophies:
  Both appreciate the unstructured, intuitive approach—mirroring their work with Lynch:

  “Conversationally…the most interesting places are found if you just don’t try to control the reins.” – Duchovny [58:20]

8. The Wine Venture and Returning Home

• Pacific Northwest Roots:

  • Kyle’s wine label honors his Yakima upbringing and brings him home:

    “Growing up in Yakima… agricultural…it’s the fruit basket of the nation… I grew up working in the garden, mowing the lawn with my brothers, picking fruit…” – MacLachlan [60:25]

  • The label, Pursued by Bear, nods to Shakespeare and his theater past.

• Working with Family:

  • Starting the project allowed time with his ailing father, side-by-side in activity rather than face-to-face confession:

    “To do something together…we were facing forward. Activities like walking, playing golf, driving in a car… talking side to side…” – [61:32]

• Wine as a Metaphor for Creative Risk:

  • Duchovny likens wine to the fruits of “failure in action”—and Kyle agrees:

    “Maybe that’s the lesson… that we can only hope that our rotten fruit is a pleasure, something we savor and can get other people high.”
    — Duchovny & MacLachlan [66:31–66:45]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Fear and Failure:

  “Fear is the mind killer… I will face my fear… where fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
  — Kyle MacLachlan quoting Frank Herbert [30:32]

• On David Lynch’s Direction:

  “Elvis was a direction. More Elvis... there’s no parsing it... you’re starting to take away the magic.” — MacLachlan [14:22]

• On Set Leadership:

  “You’re the lead guy, you set the tone. You were so kind and supportive and welcoming… a prime example of how to be that guy on set.” — Duchovny to MacLachlan [19:06]

• On Loss and Gratitude:

  “There’s an appreciation and a gratitude that comes in and kind of smacks you in the face… I cherished every day. I got up every morning, I was like, I’m so happy to go to work.” — MacLachlan on working with Lynch [45:46]

• Wine as Life Lesson:

  “Maybe that’s the lesson…we can only hope that our rotten fruit is a pleasure. It’s enjoyable. Something we savor and can get other people high.” — Duchovny & MacLachlan [66:38–66:45]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Early Life, Parental Influence, and Acting Start – [02:28–09:25]
• Landing Dune and Early Hollywood Disillusionment – [10:06–13:54], [27:53–33:05]
• First Meeting and Working with David Lynch – [12:05–16:39], [14:22-15:40]
• Twin Peaks, Kindness, and Ensemble Life – [16:45–23:01]
• Navigating Auditions, Failures & Blue Velvet – [32:55–35:20]
• Artistic Growth, Lynch’s Process, and Twin Peaks: The Return – [35:26–38:25]
• Loss of Lynch, Grief, and Legacy – [42:08–45:46]
• Self-Perception and Creative Mutuality – [46:07–47:49]
• Podcast Discussion and Embracing the Next Generation – [52:47–58:20]
• Wine Venture, Returning Home, and Metaphors of Failure – [58:31–66:45]

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Overall Tone

The conversation is nostalgic, generous, reflective, and colored with humor and warmth. Both Duchovny and MacLachlan invite vulnerability, openly sharing their missteps and lessons while always weaving back to the central idea: that what’s labeled as failure can be the start of deeper growth and creative vitality. For listeners, the rapport between old friends and creative partners makes for a candid and refreshing exploration of both the artistic process and the journey of being human.

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Transcript

[Kyle MacLachlan]

It's morning in new york. Hey everybody, I'm Andy Patinkin.

[David Duchovny]

And I'm Kathryn Grody. And we have a new podcast.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

It's called don't listen to us. Many of you have asked for our advice. Tell me what is wrong with you people.

[David Duchovny]

Don't listen to us.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Our take it or leave it advice show is out every Wednesday, premiering October 15th. A Lemonada Media original foreign.

[David Duchovny]

Hey, just a quick message before we get started. You can now listen to every episode of Fail Better ad free with Lemonada Premium on Apple Podcasts. You'll also get ad free access to and exclusive bonus content from shows like Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis Dreyfus, the Sarah Silverman podcast and so many more. It's just $5.99 a month and a great way to support the work we do. Go ad free and get bonus content when you hit subscribe on this show in Apple Podcasts. Make life suck less with fewer ads with Lemonada Premium. I'm David Duchovny and this is Fail Better, a show where failure, not success, shapes who we are. Kyle MacLachlan is an actor I first connected with on the set of Twin Peaks Lo many years ago he was the star and he's continued to prove he's a star with all the diverse successful work he's done in his career. Think Desperate Housewives and the Pixar movie Inside Out. Kyle is a really standup guy. One I remember being super kind to a new actor like me on set and I get a chance to tell him that today to thank him along with a bunch of other things that we get to. Here's that conversation. We were talking about schools for our kids. And what you said that was interesting to me is that your son actually motivated the move from. From New York to L. A Which is. Which is really cool when you think about it. When a kid like takes control like that and wants. And. And then of course you said it was because he had fond memories of not having to go to school in la. But. But I read some about your Europe brain. Can you imagine your parents listening to you in that?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

I mean, no, honestly. But then I wasn't a really smart kid. I was like, they were probably right not to listen to us because we had such wacky, crazy ideas. There was no, you know, there was just a. Our trajectory, a small town, eastern Washington.

[David Duchovny]

Well, also, you probably didn't have a sense that there was another way to go about doing it. You didn't have the sense of, oh, I Guess I could probably ask my parents if I could move to Los Angeles or Chicago or New York.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

I didn't know what an LA was. I was like, Seattle to us was the big city from where I'm from. So when it came time for me to go to college at the University of Washington, and that was also just following a trajectory, both my parents had gone there. They were both from small towns in Washington.

[David Duchovny]

Your dad, what was his work?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

He was at school. He was actually. He studied to be a lawyer. Practiced law in Yakima for a couple years. Hated it. He's in the prosecutor's office. And then he followed his passion, which was business, and he became a broker and money manager and. Yeah, and his father was very. Was not happy with him. You know, there was a, you know, a couple years there where things were pretty tense.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

But ultimately my dad had success, which I think at the end of the day, can bring parents around. That certainly happened with me in acting, the success. And when I say success, I mean, I wasn't asking him for money.

[David Duchovny]

No, I understand. But, but, but that is. That is one of the. The kind of parameters that we talk about on the podcast here is because my sense is that, you know, when we. When we're children, that's when the bars are set. You know, what is a successful life? What is an unsuccessful life? What is success and what is failure?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

In many ways, our parents give us the game in that way. It's like you go, you know, go through school and do this. And I was just wondering, you know, at some point, you know, I read your beautiful article about David, you know.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

Which is really. Yeah, Yeah. I love one of those.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

In honor of our.

[David Duchovny]

Where'd you get that?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

It was a gift. Yeah, actually. Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

From David.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Not from David.

[David Duchovny]

Perfect.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

He had a bunch of them. No, no, it was something. And I thought I would. I had it and I said, oh, yeah, probably never gonna. You know, where. We're not gonna wear this.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

I said, well, this is the perfect opportunity.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah. I don't go around wearing the flying saucer shirt. You know, it's not like that. So. But was there. What. What was the kind of the bars set for you as a child that your initial sense of, oh, this is the game I'm going to go play, and this is the parameters of success and failure. And were you terrified to be a failure in your father's eyes? Were you?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Not really. I think him having that experience, which I mentioned earlier, about, you know, having to go to school under pressure from his father to be a lawyer. That expectation. My dad was not a great student, but he passed the bar. And then practicing and realizing it, this really was not what he wanted to do. He took. He learned that lesson and said, you know, I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna force my kids to do something that they're not passionate about. He may. He tried to get me a little bit into the business world. You know, I took an econ course, which was a disaster for me, too. Couldn't make sense of it. Numbers, the concepts and numbers. I was just like, it's just not micro or macro. Macro. I don't even know the difference.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, I don't either.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

It was a 1 0. It was a introductory class.

[David Duchovny]

Yes. Econ 100, 101. Yeah. The big.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

Texas.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

There was a Psych 101, Econ 101. I did. I did History 101. Ancient history, which also wasn't helpful, but it was an interesting class. But he. He really. He kind of let us drive the ship.

[David Duchovny]

So. So when did. When did you start to think. When it. When did the idea of being an actor come across your radar? At what age?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

My mom forced me. My mom, my. She's been gone since 86. And I. I. I wish. I wish I'd been a little more savvy and been able to talk to her, because she was always the one kind of nudging me towards, you know, why don't you take some voice classes?

[David Duchovny]

Really?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Lessons? Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

Where did that come from? And her think it.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Because she really enjoyed it. She liked to be on stage.

[David Duchovny]

She had done, like, local.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

She had done, like, local theater in Seattle.

[David Duchovny]

Seattle.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

In. Well, no, actually in Yakima. So really local. Like, when I say community theater, I mean, like, small. Community. Yeah, small community theater. So she was the influence, and I think partly because I think she. She loved it, but I think she could tell something about me was sort of going that direction. I like to think now I've, you know, only come to this realization in the past couple years. My dad was like, you know, whatever you want to do. He was a jock in. In college. And so she was the one who really said or started to nudge me through this. And she got involved in some of the. The teen programs, the teenage theater programs. And she would have me come down, and I was like, oh, God, didn't want it. Didn't want to do it. I got there, I was like, wow, there's a lot of kids my age, like, lot of girls from other schools that were There, hanging out for a couple of hours.

[David Duchovny]

That old story.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

That old story.

[David Duchovny]

It's pretty.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah, it's. I'm a statistic, what can I say? And, and that sort of led to an interest and, and I also recognize in high school maybe you had the same experiences. Like, you know, I'm not bad at this. I'm actually better at this than I think anything else.

[David Duchovny]

I didn't start until I was about 25 or 26, so I didn't have that.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

There's an old timer then.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just, I'm just understanding it.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

You're just start.

[David Duchovny]

Just. I'm just coming out of my rookie season. For me it was a rediscovery of sports, actually. It was rediscovery of that collaboration, that kind of team effort that I'd really missed. For me it was just this connection to other people rather than. At that point I was a graduate student in English literature. I was just sitting on my ass all day reading. Alone, alone, alone, Alone.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

No fun.

[David Duchovny]

And so. No. No fun. You know, and, and, and fun is undervalued, I think.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

The way I was raised was, you know, everything was kind of utilitarian. Like, what's the use of this thing? Is this going to help you? I don't. Because my parents were both slightly artists in a way, but I mean that just in the sense of. There was a fear of, you know, you could slip through the cracks here. You could have no vocation, you could have no job. You've got to make some money.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

So it was.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

You felt that pressure or that.

[David Duchovny]

Oh, yeah, expectation. Maybe you did as well. Like, where am I going to fit in? You know, like, who are my people?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Think about that. I was just. I know I followed it to college. I just happened to go to the University of Washington, which had at that time a really good training program, three year repertory training program for actors. And I literally. I was there kind of. Yeah. Not knowing what I was going to do. Dropped out of school actually for a quarter because I just didn't know I failed.

[David Duchovny]

Did you have a sense that this was a possibility to have a life as a working.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

I knew that I liked it. And I did a summer stock experience when I was a kid that had Equity actors. It was on the west, on east coast.

[David Duchovny]

Sorry.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

And I said, oh, there's actors here, they come from New York, they're getting paid. This is what they do. But I don't even think I thought it through that much. It was just like, I love this. So I just said, I want to do this. And I got accepted into that program. Which then puts you on a track, pretty much. And the whole idea was, you know, you're going to work repertory theater, you're gonna live in New York, you're gonna audition, you're gonna work at so Houston. Yeah, yeah. That was going to be it.

[David Duchovny]

You leave school or you finish school, or you.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

I was going in the training program, and I left a little early to go work at the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. That was my first paying gig. Made $550 a month.

[David Duchovny]

Stop bragging.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

And I saved money.

[David Duchovny]

I still have that same 550 I still have.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

I still have the pace list somewhere. Because I'm a pack rat, right?

[David Duchovny]

So that.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

And that was. That was the start of it. And then Dune happened eight months after I was out of college.

[David Duchovny]

That's amazing.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Oh, it's. It's ridiculous.

[David Duchovny]

It is ridiculous because it doesn't happen.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

It doesn't happen. At the time, I was like, oh, yeah. So I do this. And then I was in Seattle, I got a call, I said, I'm going to go audition. And I auditioned. You know, I had this mindset, probably because I was fresh from school. You audition, you work hard, the next step is. But it was all about the process and nothing about, what does this mean? What could this mean? Ultimately, when did.

[David Duchovny]

When did you make a shift in your head from being a stage actor to auditioning for Dune and thinking, I'm gonna be a movie actor.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

It was all new because we had no camera.

[David Duchovny]

You had no idea there was a difference?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

No. And I had never been in front of a camera.

[David Duchovny]

Never.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

And we didn't have training for camera back in. So it was 70, 80 to 82, and I graduated in 82. So I just treated it like, you know, I'm working on a script. And this is what you do when you stand on stage in the dark, Someone's way out there listening to you audition, and you have no idea whether they like you or they don't.

[David Duchovny]

So did you audition live for David, or was it all done on tape?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Done on tape. The casting agent, he hired you off a tape?

[David Duchovny]

He.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Well, he brought me down. They brought me. They flew me to la, which was another new, new experience.

[David Duchovny]

How did you feel?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

I didn't know what. I was just like, this is crazy. Yeah. But, okay. I had a kind of a weird. Like, just a drive forward. It wasn't. I wasn't kind of taking everything in. I was just like, okay, I'm gonna go down and do this. I stayed at the Beverly Garland Holiday Inn. I've been back since.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, you have the stub.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

I have the stub there for as well.

[David Duchovny]

You're 22 at this point, right?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

22. 20. 22. Turning. Yeah. Turn 23 when I'm working and I just go. And I meet David. And of course, you know David, what a wonderful man. He was so approachable and easygoing.

[David Duchovny]

How was that? Can you remember that first meeting? And did you have a sense that you guys had forged some kind of connection?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

I did, and I didn't. I was so. Again, just kind of focused and intent. I couldn't really relax into the meeting, but he was relaxed. And we talked about the. He grew up. You know, he was born in Missoula. He grew up in the Northwest. We talked about all the things that we shared because the whole Northwest is similar, particularly on the east side of the. Of the Cascades. And we talked about that. We talked about red wine, a little bit story. Oh, yeah. We already just kind of just cover in territory, you know, and then. And he said, great. And that's what he said. Come back in five or six days and we'll screen test. And then. Then I. Then it got serious. But then again, the same thing as the script.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

I mean, granted, he was a.

[David Duchovny]

Was he in the screenplay? Was he in the room for that?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

When I did. When I screen tested, yeah. Oh, yeah. They did a whole. It was a big thing at Dykstra's old studio, Apogee. John Dykstra. And so we did it there. And I actually did it. Just did a keynote in my hometown. And I included that moment because I was in. On the. Doing the screen test, and I was looking right into the lens of the camera, which, you know, we never do. And I froze. And I thought I just completely screwed up this audition.

[David Duchovny]

And I went up.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah, yeah. I didn't. And it was not a very difficult passage, but I just lost everything. And David came over to me and just sort of talked me down and then said, no worries, bud. You know? Yeah, let's just film. We'll go again. And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, okay.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

And I kind of gathered my wits and went forward and worked out, got the job.

[David Duchovny]

Was that when. When he talked to you, Is that the kind of direction that. That. That he would give you? Was it more. As you. As you got more into a working relationship? Is it usually obtuse like that? You know, not kind of directed right at the material, but, like the relaxation or the taking Your mind off of something and.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

No, no, it was more. More mythic, kind of. He would direct with qualities or images. Elvis was a direction. More Elvis. Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

I've got to try that.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

You got to try that. And I would. And so I was like, I. I didn't ask him or I'd say. You mean there's no. There's no parsing it. Don't. Because the minute you talk about it now, you're starting to take away the magic. Yeah, yeah. And that was. I learned that with working with David.

[David Duchovny]

Well, it's a short circuit of your logical mind. In a way.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

It is.

[David Duchovny]

It's like it's trying to speak to some side of your brain that's not. Not the one that's going to dial it incorrectly, but the one that's.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

You mean, like, to be, like, evil?

[David Duchovny]

No. Yes.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

It's a vibe, you know, so I picked up on that pretty quickly. And then he liked that. And he said, more. Sometimes more wind. He would say, this is a mysterious kind of component. And, you know, and I. And you see in his films, wind coming up, moving stoplights around trees and things. Exactly. As a. You know, moves you in a certain way, makes you feel a certain thing.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

And this is the way he would describe to me the energy in the scene or the vibe of the scene.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

So I would just take that in. He.

[David Duchovny]

He.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

I'm trying to remember, when you came on.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Twin Peaks, was he directing the episodes that you were.

[David Duchovny]

No, no. But he did direct in the reboot. In fact, I did a scene with him. Right.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yes. That he directed as Gordon Cole.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah. So I was. That was. It was always one of my regrets that I didn't get to work with him.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

In fact, I went to the wrap party for you guys, and he said, oh, I'm happy I didn't get. I didn't have to work with you. You were your scene stealer. He said that I was like, no, no, no. I'm a team player.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Well, I think you are. You are. Do this. I mean, I feel like you as an actor, you're. You have a. A real sense of mystery. So you are very compelling. So you do the. Do less. In the old phrase, less is more. You are definitely.

[David Duchovny]

I'm a less Elvis.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Less Elvis, but as. Equally as engaging and as compelling, and people want to watch you.

[David Duchovny]

Well, thank you. When I went back to do the reboot, you know, my. My. My opinion of David, I think, is very similar to yours, which is. He's sui generis, is the Latin phrase. He's of himself completely. I can't tell his influences. I can't imagine anybody being influenced by him. You either take him whole or you don't. You can't chew him up. He's just so.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

I agree with you.

[David Duchovny]

I recognize that early on, I think when I saw his work, and I wanted very badly for him, you know, to like me. When I came back, you know, 2015.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah. You know, and already been 10 years.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah. And.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Okay.

[David Duchovny]

I remember I was doing the makeup and the hair for Denise, and I wasn't pleased with the way I had aged. You know, it had been. How many.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

I'm right there with you.

[David Duchovny]

How many years was it? So this is from 88. Was it 88,990?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

89. 90 was the air date.

[David Duchovny]

It was 25 years.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah. Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

So I was looking at myself in the mirror, and I was like, you know what? I. I gotta find another way in.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Because this ain't working.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, it wasn't working for me. And so I said to David when I got out on set and I was shooting this other show called Aquarius, so we were like, I. Shooting, like a Saturday night, like, downtown. Just Saturday night.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Okay.

[David Duchovny]

And I said, david, can I. Do you mind if I. If I. If I perch on the front of the desk and we have the scene like that? Because my legs were still good and I wanted to use my legs.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

You do have great legs.

[David Duchovny]

And David said that would make me very uncomfortable. And I was like, oh, he doesn't like me.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Interesting. No, no, no, no.

[David Duchovny]

I know, but I love his sort.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Of, like, his response was.

[David Duchovny]

Or they'll make his character very uncomfor. Uncomfortable.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Comfortable. Yeah, Gordon.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, Gordon.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Which could be a great thing.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah. Well, so we didn't do it that way, But. But that's my. So. And also, I want to say, while we're on the subject, because I did. I did want to talk about Twin Peaks a little.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

I got the part and I showed up on set. And you personally were so kind. And this is something that I took, you know, later into my career when. When, you know, it's your set, like, you're the. You're the lead guy. You set the tone. And you were so kind and supportive and welcoming, and, you know, it was really a. A prime example of how to be that guy on set.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Oh, thank you.

[David Duchovny]

And it doesn't. It's not a given. I mean, you've been on other sets where it's not a given at all.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Agree.

[David Duchovny]

And it's It's a shitty feeling when you're on that other kind of set.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

And for me, as like a 27, 28 year old guy just starting to work, also doing a part that's a little out there, you know, and it was bold.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

You were bold to take it at that time.

[David Duchovny]

Well, bold. I needed a pot to piss in.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

You know, it's like, you know, that's, that's the part that they don't.

[David Duchovny]

There was no boldness.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

You take what's there. The best thing that you can. The most interesting thing.

[David Duchovny]

What's the part?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yes, yes, there is a lot. Oh, my God. I've been down that road too. I know exactly what you mean.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah. So you and, and your brother, I mean, I, I felt very lucky to be there and I always wanted to. I'm happy that I got to say that to you today because I've always wanted to. Joan Cusack was another person who was. I was an extra on a Mike Nichols movie on that one with Alec Baldwin and Melanie Griffiths. Working girl.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Working Girl. Thank you.

[David Duchovny]

Oh, and John Cusack was lovely to me. And you just remember, you remember the pros.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah. So, yeah, it's. And I. And I've had, as you described, both the same experiences and when, when someone goes out of their way just to make you feel good because it's, you know, you. Part of it is just because you're a decent person. Part of it is like you want them to be comfortable so they can do their best work.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

So that the piece is going to be solid, you know, but.

[David Duchovny]

And you said to me, I wish you could be in every episode. You said that to me. I was like, I want to be in every episode.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Great actor.

[David Duchovny]

But it also is the second year and I got to say there was a diff. There was a different feeling on the set. Well, not that I could compare it to the first year, but people don't remember or people can remember or should remember that that show was a meteor. That show, it was like, you know, you talk about like subsequent ones recently. Game of Thrones, Last of Us, whatever, but it, this was on a network.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

Which is crazy.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

Because it's still too wild for even streamers. I don't think it gets made today.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah, without question.

[David Duchovny]

So the, the cultural imprint of that show was so big and, and so immediate.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah. Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

And I wonder. Well, I mean, I, I was just relating it to the second year, which was a different, definitely a different feel on that set.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Well, the vibe of the. Remember the first year we, we filmed everything before it ever went to air. So it was a pilot and then the episodes that they purchased, I never remember seven or eight, I don't know this thing. But all of those were filmed before anything had been. Before we really in today's night dropped anything. Right. Maybe she hadn't dropped it. So we were mid season replacement.

[David Duchovny]

Oh really? So it goes on Saturday night.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

Right. Nobody watches TV on Saturday night. And then they dumped you.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah, yeah. And the expectation, well, the expectation after the pilot was we're not going to do. No one's going to buy this as a series. ABC is not going to pick this up. Come on.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

You know, it's just, it's David lynch on television. We're all happy because we were anarchists.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

They let the inmates take over the asylum for a short period of time, but then they were going to, you know, shut us down. But they did. And then they went forward with the next one and you know, that's when it kind of went kind of wobbled and, you know, lost.

[David Duchovny]

It's the specialness, the second, the second.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Season, last half of the second season.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, right.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

With moments of brilliance.

[David Duchovny]

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[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

To Dune. Right. So, like, I don't really agree with other people's conceptions of failure and success. I have my own. But let's say, well, you come. How many. How many months you've been auditioning is one of the first things you've auditioned for. Right.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

It's the first film.

[David Duchovny]

First.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

The first screenplay I ever read.

[David Duchovny]

That is ridiculous.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Dune was the first screenplay and Blue Velvet was the second screenplay I ever read.

[David Duchovny]

That is. That is not.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Our engineer is waiting.

[David Duchovny]

Yay.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah. Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

Fuck you. So lightning strikes, you win the lotto. You. Your first God damn it. Movie audition. You get this big movie, even though David lynch is not yet. David Lynch.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

No. Elephant man. You know, he'd had Beautiful, beautiful film. Extraordinary. Yeah, yeah.

[David Duchovny]

And then are you sitting there thinking, oh, my God, I'm on my way, or what? What are you thinking at that point?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Well, it's. It's a mixed bag because people were telling me, this is going to change your life forever, you know, And I'm like, I have no concept of what that is. Yeah. In my head, I'm an actor. This is a part. I'm doing this thing. I don't know what that means. And then contractually, I. I was not allowed to do film or television until Dune was released. So we finished filming. I finished my bits in September. October of 83.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Movies released in December of 84. I got nothing to do. So I go back and do a play. Oh, I'm back home up in Seattle and I do that and I kind of bop around and do some things.

[David Duchovny]

How was your experience actually doing the work?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

The thing was, I knew the character. I knew Paul so well because I'd read the book when I was 14 for the first time and must have read it a dozen times before I got the call. Really out of the blue. Yeah. It was a monumental book for me. It changed my junior high and high school years. I mean, I knew almost every page.

[David Duchovny]

What was it about that particular story that spoke to you?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

The character, for sure, being. Being a pretty shy, sort of frightened kid growing up that I sort of tried to put back by just being the funny guy. But secretly I'm, like, terrified of everything. And here was Paul, who was going through this experience and seemed to, like, really? I just. I appreciated the journey of what he was going through and how he was able to sort of fight through the fear. There's a wonderful fear is the mind killer quote that Frank Herbert wrote in the book. It's a death brings Total. Well, fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And where my fear has gone, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. And then you say, and where fear has gone, there will nothing will remain. There will be nothing. Only I will remain. So I'm like, okay, so you have to let this fear. So, you know, it was a teaching moment, really for me.

[David Duchovny]

And that should have been the quote for this podcast. So Dune comes out and it feels like a failure. Oh, no. Yes.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

In the business. Yeah. World. Yeah, it was. But again, it was. I was in my mind. I said, well, I've done Dune. I had to do five Dune pictures and three non Dune pictures. That was the contract I had with De Laurentiis. Jesus, they don't do that anymore. But that was it. I was coming from, I say, not relative obscurity, complete obscurity. So they had all the cards right.

[David Duchovny]

Well, also, you know, you're looking at that and you're going, that's eight movies.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Well, yeah, exactly. There's that side of it too.

[David Duchovny]

I'm gonna do eight movies.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

I'm gainfully employed for the next, you know, 40 years.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

So. But of course, when Dune came out, they said, well, we're not gonna do any contract was. Yeah, done. So I didn't. And I didn't really grasp the. Didn't really read reviews. I didn't really get the fact that there was a. The money part of this was a huge problem because they'd spent the X of number of dollars on. It wasn't recouping just the language of the business that I. I don't know. And I didn't really make it my business to sort of learn about it, which was dumb. But that's not dumb.

[David Duchovny]

I think that's healthy, what it was.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

So I. So I drove to LA and got a place and. And I had a man, I had an agent, and I had a manager. Someone was helping me. And so I said, oh, I got that. You know, that was good, right? So let's see what happens. And I started auditioning and I was awful, really awful. Every audition, no addition was ever. Like, meeting Dave David wasn't even an audition. It was a. It was a meeting first. And then you did. Then you learned the dialogue and then you did the scenes. Yeah, that made sense to me. But this other stuff, I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm standing here with the page. I don't know if your audition experiences. It's awful.

[David Duchovny]

Well, yeah, I. I didn't get a lot of parts. I mean, probably more than 100 auditions that I didn't get.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

And I'm right there with you.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

But I understand completely.

[David Duchovny]

But. But coming from, you know, that initial hit that you had, you know, to get. To get that, it must have been confusing in some way.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

No, without question. Because you sort of feel like. And I think I carried a chip on my shoulders, like, hey, I've done this lead in this major motion picture. Okay. Didn't do well, but haven't I. Yeah. Proved something that would, you know, mean that I wouldn't necessarily have to go in for everything.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, right.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah. But there was no. People weren't interested. They. They. The audition was the only way.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah. Remember, it was like, oh, you'll go straight to producers or. No, you. You're going to go to the casting director. No, you're going to go to the casting director's associate.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yes.

[David Duchovny]

Then you go to the casting. Then you go forward. Yeah.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

So it was all of that. So. And I responded by being kind of. I was sort of cavalier. I said, well, it. You know what I mean? I'm just gonna. I'm not even really gonna prepare. I'm just gonna go in, you know, let inspiration carry the day. They should know. They should know that I'm right, you know, and it was bad attitude and didn't really work. And then David, bless his heart, came back with Blue Velvet, which we had talked about during Dune.

[David Duchovny]

You had talked about it?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah. And he said, you know, he was very keen on having me as Jeffrey. And I thought the script was unbelievable. It was very like, oh, this is dange compelling. And I'm really intrigued, all of that. I wanted to understand more of that journey. And we finally went. We started filming in August, I think, of 85. So it's a couple years after eight months after the release of Dune. And. Two years. Yeah, it was two years. More than two years since I had shot Dune. Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah. I was like, okay, you said something really interesting in. In that article. And I would. I would send people to read that article that you wrote because it's beautifully written and it's a beautiful sentiment. You said, where do I have it? No, I didn't always understand what we were making. Sometimes I get a sense of it and then, like, on a breeze, it was gone. Other times, it seemed to exist on a plane that I wanted to reach but couldn't quite. Articulate but eventually I realized it didn't matter.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yes. It took a while.

[David Duchovny]

Can you unpack that for me?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Well, I think we understand about David. What he creates is to be experienced, not necessarily understood intellectually at some level of that. But I think the real impact is in just the journey and immersing yourself in that journey and in that world. And I learned on Dune, I was a much more, you know, like, okay, in this scene here, I'm saying this, but, you know, this is what's. You know, I had all these questions for him.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

And he was very generous for about the first six or seven minutes of the conversation. And then his eyes would glaze over and I would just go, okay. And I did the same thing with Blue Velvet. I still kind of. But I was starting to pick up on. It took me a while.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

To pick up on the fact that this really wasn't his favorite form of dialogue between us. He didn't like answering all these questions. And so then I just kind of. With Twin Peaks, backed off even further.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

And Twin Peaks was pretty. Pretty clear. Dale Cooper. And I. I. And I also modeled him a little bit on David. Yeah. Physically. And. And the way he spoke.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

And gradually during the course, was David aware of that?

[David Duchovny]

Did he. Did he ever say.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah, he may have been. He didn't really say. He never said it. He's like, you know, sometimes he's like, here, now. You know, David, I really need you. So I would steal some mannerisms from him. But I did. I slowly began to sort of. And when we did the return in 2015, I rarely did. I just kind of. Sometimes I wanted just a little. Am I on the right track here?

[David Duchovny]

Well, that's interesting, too, because in the Return, you were all over the place. I mean, your character was stretched in ways that you never would have thought coming out of the show.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

No.

[David Duchovny]

So if there was ever a time when you were. When you would go, yeah, what the fuck? It would be then. But. But it seems like at that point, you guys were so kind of joined in some way or were communicating in some way that you. You just got in. Your work is amazing.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

And thank you. I'm really proud of that.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, you should be. Yeah.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Locked in.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

The word the kids use. And I was locked in. And it was. It was an Exercising courage, really. You know, particularly the Dougie character. Well, both Dougie and the character. The Mr. C doppelganger. That was. Upon reading the first. My first reading of the. Which was 500 pages of script, I recognized pretty Quickly. What he was asking me to do. And. And I. And also that if I wasn't, you know, the scariest to walk down, then it's not going to work. You know, so I'm like, I've always wanted to play like a villain. Right. And I've always wanted to try to exercise that side of me, but I've never had a chance, and I've never. Did I really want to, or was I just saying that? You know, I was, like, talking myself into this. You should challenge yourself.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

You don't have to, but. And this was an opera. This was. He just said, no, you're. This is the opportunity. I was like, okay, well, at least I'm going in here with David, you know, and if have any chance of succeeding, it's going to be because of him. And. And it really worked. He was a character I didn't like. I mean, you had this experience where you have a character that. I didn't like getting into him every day.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Because the humanity just dropped out. But there was a tremendous sense of power when I was in this character. And not like I walked around all day like that, but you kind of keep the burners on, right?

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

And then someone that I was so happy to put up on the rack, hang up the coat hanger, and put him in the trailer at the end of the day, and I had the long drive back from set, usually, to just, you know, let that go.

[David Duchovny]

So you wouldn't bring him home?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Wouldn't bring him. Did you ever have a character that sort of.

[David Duchovny]

That you felt, I guess, in Californication? I mean, I kind of. The. The sense of empowerment that I got from. From that show was this was a guy who had no filter, you know, and I have. I have a filter, you know, so. Yeah, but I don't want to. None of us really want to.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Right.

[David Duchovny]

And so I would go to work and say, you know, and just, like, it was free. Felt it. Very freeing, felt it, felt fun.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah. You know, because it's like, it's not me.

[David Duchovny]

But then I. It would be a mistake to bring that home. Yes, But. But when you were. When you were stretching in those aspects of the character or different characters, I'm not even sure, you know, what they were.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah, I know. I.

[David Duchovny]

Who knows? Aspects of the psyche, maybe.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

You weren't having those discussions with David. You were just kind of intuitively going off each other at that point.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah. Yeah. For the doppelganger Mr. C character, we created him kind of from the outside in More Elvis.

[David Duchovny]

More Elvis. More Elvis.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Not too much Elvis. But it was the look, everything that went into making that visual of him. And to the point where I would look at myself in the mirror, particularly because we chose to do a kind of a opaque lens, which I went to David with, and I wasn't sure. I said. But he saw it. He said, no, this is right for this character.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Because there's a deadness there. There's a shark eyes, you know, and. And that really, really helped. But we. We. And even to the. The last touch was the makeup on the face, the darkening of the skin, the dirtying of that skin.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

And I saw that, and I was.

[David Duchovny]

Just like, oh, yeah. It can be helpful to work outside in sometimes.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

I've got no problem either way, because wherever you're going, you're ultimately going in.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

It's just how you get there.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

There's a lot of truck, there's a lot of roads. And Dougie was just courage, because I had to believe that nothing was everything. I'm doing nothing. I mean, I'm literally doing nothing. How long can you do nothing? You know?

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

And I would just stand there, and David would just get. Yep. Keep. Keep going. Hold that look, you know, in that voice of his, you know, from behind the camera. Oh, Kale. You know, he'd say, just, you know, and then it's a. Then it's like not holding. He's just trying not to laugh because we do that, too, where we try to make each other laugh.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

It's just part of the joy working with him. So special. So special.

[David Duchovny]

Before moving on to more recent stuff.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

I don't really know how to phrase this question, but you say in. In that article that I've referenced, that he. That David, you know, created you in some ways.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah. Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

What is. What does that feel like, to have that kind of simpatico with a fellow creator? And what does it feel like to lose that person? You know, like what. What has been. And, you know, these feel like failures sometimes when we lose people, even though we know it's death and we know it happens, but there's a loss. There's a sense of diminishment.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah. And I'm wondering, the loss I felt for him was. I mean, everybody's experience is going to be different. There's the immediate depending on how close you were. And we were close. We didn't talk every day. But for me, I always. David, for me, was always in his home not far from where I live, actually working like he was in his wood shop. He was painting up in the crow's nest. He was editing in the studio, making music. He was making coffees in the little kitchen. He was always doing, always working. So it's kind of strange.

[David Duchovny]

He.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

You know, I go there. There's a memorial service. I know he's gone, but I'm like, I'm not. I'm not. Is he gone? You know, in my. I'm like, yeah. And I'm like. I'm sort of sad, but I'm like. And then I saw the advertisement saying that his house was for sale, the compound for sale, and pictures, images of the interior, and it really hit me, and I was like, fuck, he's not there where I know him to be. And I just thought it was. You register. It's like, that's an odd place for it to manifest, but that's how it. That's how it came to me. And in terms of creating, I mean, yes, I think there's. There's a lot of truth to that. Dune and Blue Velvet were my first two films, and you couldn't find two. Two more completely different films, styles, you know, texture, characters than those two. And the movies or television shows that. That cast me after that, there was always an influence of that, including Twin Peaks, Mark Cherry, Desperate Housewives. Love Twin Peaks, you know, and it was like. And I think there was. I think there was a certain kind of a luster that I. Because of my work with David, that I just. That got passed on to me, justifiably or not. It was just because of my proximity with him and because we had done amazing work together. And I love the man so dearly, but when I was younger in this, it was. It felt to me like this is somewhat of a. Not a straitjacket, but with some kind of enclosing me in this. I mean, I. But I'll tell you what, there was. As I got older and we came back particularly for the return, I grew up. You know, there's a maturity that settles in. There's an understanding, and there's an appreciation and a gratitude that comes in and kind of smacks you in the face and said, listen, you are one of the luckiest here. And when we went to go back again and I knew I had a chance to work with my dear friend and this creative genius, I was like. I cherished every day, I can tell you. I got up every morning, I was.

[David Duchovny]

Like, I'm so happy to go to work.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

I'd make my coffee in my kitchen. I get to work with David today, I am so happy. And that doesn't happen in every film, as you know, but for this, it was there. That was where I, I had the understanding of just how lucky I was to have worked with him.

[David Duchovny]

And on the converse of that though, have you ever given yourself the space to say David was lucky to find me?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

No, never. No, I don't even think like that.

[David Duchovny]

I bet he would say that though.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

He, we had a connection there, as he has a connection with Laura Dern, as he has a connection with other people that he's worked with, artists that he's worked with.

[David Duchovny]

But I'm saying the work would not have been exactly what it is had it not been for you as well. You know that.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

If you can give yourself that kind of a.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

You're right, you're right. Yeah. I think I certainly, you know, in some ways I feel like I was a really good clay to work. You know, David got to kind of needed an interpreter and that's what it was. And I've come to understand that, that I'm, that I'm. I'm the person carrying an audience into a world that is unusual and scary and maybe slightly off kilter. And I think, and I used to say that. And then I said, you know, there's something else. I said, there's a stability. I think to me, you know, everything is kind of measured in level that I think was important as people went through this. And I said, I think that's also part of. Because I thought, you know, what, what.

[David Duchovny]

Was it that he saw in you?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Saw in me. And I'm thinking, I'm thinking, yeah, those things. But, but kind of a down to earth regular person, stable. You believe in him? Certainly with Dale Cooper.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Which is why when we lose him at the end of that second season of the first go around. Yeah, it was such a. I was so excited about the idea of playing this and then ABC canceled us. But I was like, oh, I get to take that idea of Cooper and turn it on its head. You know, what's that gonna be like?

[David Duchovny]

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[Julia Louis-Dreyfus]

Well, hi everybody, it's Julia Louis Dreyfus from the Wiser Than Me podcast. And I'm not going to talk about food waste this time. I'm going to talk about food resources. All that uneaten food rotting in the landfill, it could be enriching our soil or feeding our chickens because it's still food. And the easiest and frankly, way coolest way to put all its nutrients to work is with the Mill Food recycler. It looks like an art house garbage can. You can just toss your scraps in it like a garbage can. But it is definitely not a garbage can. I mean, it's true. I'm pretty obsessed with this thing. I even invested in this thing. But I'm not alone. Any mill owner just might corner you at a party and rhapsodize about how it's completely odorless and it's fully automated and how you can keep filling it for weeks. But the clincher is that you can depend on it for years. Mill is a serious machine. Think about a dishwasher, not a toaster. It's built by hand in North America and it's engineered by the guy who did your iPhone. But you have to kind of live with Mill to understand all the love. That's why they offer a risk free trial. Go to mill.com wiser for an exclusive offer.

[David Duchovny]

I wanted to, to talk a little bit about the, the podcast because that's, that's coming, that's starting. You've started doing it.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

I dropped a few. Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

And you know, it's so hard to come up with a good podcast idea because it's like everybody has had a podcast at this point. Yeah, it's like Warhol's things. Like in the future everybody will have had a podcast. But your idea is good. You know, it's, it's a hooky idea.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

It's a hooky idea. It wasn't. It wasn't.

[David Duchovny]

Explain it.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah, well, it's really just. So the podcast is called what are we even doing? And you can say that. What are we even doing? What are we even doing? And I sit down with Gen Z young millennials and we have a conversation like we're having here just about their creative process. So I'm curious as to how they get into a character or what were the moments when they knew this is what I wanted to do. A lot of what we've talked about as well. And how do they use social to amplify their platform, their message, what are their ultimate goals? And I speak to, I've spoken to, I guess, Kaia Gerber, she's a model, actress, comedians, Dylan o', Brien, wonderful young actor as well. And, and Willa Bennett has been, I have her coming up actually in the, in the queue. Editor in chief of Cosmo. So just really kind of approaching it as There's a generation, a couple generations that are new creators. So what's important to them? And we literally just sit and have a conversation. I have a few questions, but I, I end up, as we're doing, we kind of go off on tangents and come back to a few things that I want to ask about them. And I've really, I've had a great time. I, I didn't know what to expect. I don't know if you had that experience when you started. You're like, well, try this.

[David Duchovny]

But, yeah, I mean, I, I, I thought it would be easier than it was at first anyway. And I thought, yeah, I don't, I don't know what I thought. But what I, what I admire about what you're doing is because I, I'm, I'm coming from a, you know, I need, I need a little bit of you because I'm like, you and your social media. You and all that.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yes, I understood.

[David Duchovny]

And I'm all. That's When I, when I, when I read about that and when I listened to one, I was like, fuck, yeah. You know, like, that's a good attitude to have because you don't want to be the older guy who's saying, my day.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah. And I feel like, you know, we're probably similar there. There are, we have our mentors and our inspirations. Right. I mean, you think of Marlon Brando, Right. Or you think of James Dean, or you go on and on the list of actors, you know, Paul Newman, etc. I don't know. I never, I don't look, haven't been looking back, I realized, and saying, well, who, who inspires me that's younger than me, you know, and there's plenty. But I said, what's happening there?

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

And I may be part of it. Motivated by my son, who's 17, and he's, you know, he has his people he follows and he, that he. And I'm like, well, what's, what does that look like? You know, certainly his music, and I like his musical tastes. I'm like, My parents were like, like, turn off that noise. Yeah. That generation. But I'm like, no, this is interesting. I like this. The language is a little intense. But I said, I get it. Okay. So it's been a. More curiosity about what's, you know, what's coming.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, No, I, I admire that because I'm, you know, as I said, my impulse is to, like, I'm going to teach you something.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah, kid.

[David Duchovny]

And when you turn it like that, it seems like an easy Turn. But it's not. And I don't see anybody else doing that. And I think actually it can be kind of profound. Just the fact that you're doing it is profound. And I think that, you know, it's. It's a really interesting idea.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Why not? And I. I agree. And as we've gotten into it, I've only done 10, and we've. And we've dropped.

[David Duchovny]

That's a lot, though.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

But it's a good chunk. Yeah. Because it's like this. You sit down. There's a lot of preparation. You have your preparation here. And this is all.

[David Duchovny]

This is all gibberish.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

That doesn't even pertain to me. Wait a minute. That's your shopping list. What am I thinking? Groceries for the day.

[David Duchovny]

Yes.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Okay.

[David Duchovny]

2% milk. How do you feel about 2% milk?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

I'm a big believer in 2% milk. Although for. If I'm gonna go into. And I'm. I drink black.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

If I'm gonna go dairy, I'll do a whole milk. I'm showing. Go all in, you know.

[David Duchovny]

Okay.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

You only live once. But.

[David Duchovny]

And if you've done 10. Did you. I. I do recall I was doing my first one with. My first. First podcast with Ben Stiller, and I was thinking, oh, this is going to be easy, because I know Ben, we're friends, and, you know, it's a great idea. I thought I got it. And it was. You know, I think it's. I think it was good, but I didn't feel comfortable, you know, And I'm just wondering if. If you have. And part of this was I thought I. I thought I wanted to get somewhere.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Oh.

[David Duchovny]

And.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah, I don't. Yeah, I. I don't.

[David Duchovny]

That's. That's the key.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Because I don't think I'm capable. I know I'm not capable actually, of structure.

[David Duchovny]

But. But, I mean, the way you work with David was intuitive. You know, that there wasn't like an end result. Trying to.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

Trying to come out. And that's.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

Conversationally. I think you get to these places that are more interesting if you just don't try to control the rains.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Let them run. Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

Do you want to. Do you want to tell me a little about your wine? I'm a little unhappy that you didn't bring me.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

I can't believe I forgot to bring. I've drunk on my wine, actually. That's the problem. I will get wine to you.

[David Duchovny]

Sure.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

But I like the fact that it's. It's connected to your childhood. It's connected to that part of the world that you're still. And I worked in Vancouver for five years, and I. I share.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Okay.

[David Duchovny]

The love and the. The yearning, actually, to. To be back there always, you know, once you've spent time in the Pacific Northwest, it's one of the most beautiful places in the world. I've been all around the world, and it's still.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

I agree.

[David Duchovny]

Verdant. Green.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Verdant. See, that's the English major right there. Verdant. Who uses verdant in a city?

[David Duchovny]

Try to use verdant.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Verdant. And you have a yellow line around it. That's very good. No, he doesn't. Completely agree. Love Vancouver as a city. One of my favorite cities. Stanley park up there is just. Come on. When I could run, that was my break on my run.

[David Duchovny]

You can bike?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

You can bike? Yeah, I can bike. I'll pay the price after my knees. Well, swimming is really the. The thing. Well, I don't like to swim.

[David Duchovny]

You don't like to swim? Did you.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

You love. Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

Did you ever.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Well, you have the red.

[David Duchovny]

You don't like the red, but you didn't. You didn't ever, because you don't like to swim. But they've got this amazing pool in Vancouver. I don't know if you know the one.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

I don't know. No.

[David Duchovny]

It's the largest pool in North America.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Holy smokes. So you got to be in the lane for a long time, and you're just.

[David Duchovny]

There's no. There's no buoy. So everybody.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Everybody's.

[David Duchovny]

It's Canadian, so everybody's very polite about.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Sorry, excuse me. Pardon me. Pardon me.

[David Duchovny]

You know, we make fun of Canadians for that, but God love them. Oh, God love them, absolutely. For being.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Being humane.

[David Duchovny]

Yes. So anyway, connection to the soil.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yes, yes. Growing up in Yakima. Now, Washington is actually two states. Of course, it's got the green side, which is west of the Cascades, and then the dry, low desert side, which is on the east side. Where I'm from. Agricultural. I mean, it's the fruit basket of the nation, as they say. Everyone takes credit for that, but I think it really is. Everything grows there. And I grew up working in the garden, mowing the lawn with my brothers, having lawn jobs, picking fruit during the fall season when fruit was ripe. And so I was like, you know, you tuned into this kind of world and then went off to seek my fortune and. But I came back primarily because my dad was ailing a little, in bad health, and I hadn't you know, I'd go home like Christmas, maybe sometime in the summer, twice a year. And I said, this is not enough. And I've all at this concurrently. I was thinking, you know what I like? The wine world was starting to take root.

[David Duchovny]

I think you're saying concurrently. I was thinking, I like wine.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

I like wine. I've always liked wine. In fact, I know high school, I liked wine. I was one of the. Again, that strange, nerdy kid.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

And I said, maybe this is. I'd like to explore that a little bit. And it seems to be sort of happening in Washington state. And then I said, it gives me a chance to see my dad. We can do something together. I don't know if with parents, my dad and I, we were to do something together was always. We were facing forward. And so activities like walking, if we're playing golf, you know, you're walking forward and you're talking, you know, side to side. Driving in a car, you're talking side to side. And I said, it's not. Not. Sit down with a coffee and look at each other and go, okay, how are you feeling? It's like that at all.

[David Duchovny]

That's hard.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

It's hard. Or in the garden, you know, he'd be doing something. I'd be here helping out. Anyway, the wine business seemed like the right thing. So I had made the acquaintance of a. Of a winemaker in Walla Walla, Eric Dunham. And. And he agreed to partner with me. And so 2005, I'd had my first vintage. We did 300 cases of a blend called Pursued by Bear. English major. You know that reference?

[David Duchovny]

I knew it.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Exunt, Exeunt. Pursued by a Bear.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah. Which was special effects back then.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

I think so too.

[David Duchovny]

People forget about. I just read this book called Will in the World. Have you read it?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

No. Should I? Is it good?

[David Duchovny]

All right.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Good stuff.

[David Duchovny]

I mean, it's a little disappointing because you realize Shakespeare was, you know, they say, I think it was Baudelaire said, you know, to be great in art, you must be bourgeois in your habits, you know? And so you. Okay. And you realize, oh, Shakespeare is just a bourgeois guy. You know, he liked to make his money and, you know, he wanted a coat of arms really badly.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

And, you know, come on, who doesn't want a coat of arms at the.

[David Duchovny]

End of the day?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Right. I totally get it.

[David Duchovny]

I would. I. I would have thought he was this rebel that didn't give a fuck about any of that. And I'm fine with him, you know?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Right.

[David Duchovny]

He was a He was a working actor and a working writer.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

And so if you have Exit, pursued by a bear, you realize he's. He's playing to the cheap seats.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

Which is great. Yeah, I love that, because I think we put Shakespeare on this pedestal as this. This one off. Genius is impossible to understand when in fact he. He was working in the equivalent of television.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yes.

[David Duchovny]

Like, he was trying.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah, yeah. Like we think of some of the plays, for goodness sakes, let's just chop a bunch of people up on stage.

[David Duchovny]

But also the jokes.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

And the jokes from the very body.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, very body.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

I love it.

[David Duchovny]

Anyway, so go ahead. So it's exactly pursuit.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

That was the same stage direction. Act three, scene three, the Winter's Tale. So I just took Pursued by Bear, Nothing else. Honestly, nothing else was working. Everything else that I'd tried was trademarked. And I wanted something that was sort of, you know, a nod to my theater roots. I love Shakespeare. I said, let's try that. And it cleared. So we were there. We were pursued by bear. We had 300 case production. And I would bring my dad down as we would go through the process. Was telling a story recently about out we went. We'd been visiting the Dunham family. We went down and they said, hey, do you want to come down, do some barrel tasting? And I said, that sounds great. I've never done that. Let's try that.

[David Duchovny]

I've never tasted a barrel.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Right. I mean, what do you do? Just lick it? You just lick the side of it. Barrel tastings. You go in. Yes, you go in.

[David Duchovny]

And I just saw it. I saw.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah, you go in and you extract. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[David Duchovny]

So somebody put that little gizmo.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

It's like a long kind of a glass tube. You go in, you grab, you siphon it out, and you put it in the glass and you. You swirl around, you sniff it, you taste it. And I think the wine had been in the barrel for four or five months, so really young. And so I tasted it, and I was like, oh, Jesus, this is not good. And. But I put it on a good face. My dad was standing next to me, and I said, what did you. What do you think? And he said, oh, this tastes awful. I was like, thanks for the vote of encouragement. And then he went on to say, are you sure you're working with the right people? Eric is standing right there. And I'm like, dad, dad, dad, you've been doing this for 10 years. And Eric said, no, no, no. This is exactly where it should be at this particular point. So Anyway, just a little sidebar. You know, my dad was. He could be the. He's your biggest fan and you can be your toughest critic. Yeah, that was him.

[David Duchovny]

So. And where it's been a satisfying journey with. With the wine. You're still.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yeah, yeah, I get to go home. We talked about that. And Eastern Washington is similar between Yakima and Walla Walla. It's like I said, egg centric. Walla Walla is a little more wheat farming than up where I'm from, but very similar and just something completely different, you know, with a whole other culture.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

And people that I absolutely adore and love and work with. And it's a struggle. I do something on the wine every day. I'm either on my computer. I was just talking to my distribution manager this morning before I came, and we're figuring out something for Vegas and. And I just love it. I really did.

[David Duchovny]

I was trying to come up with a really clever kind of ending to our. Our talk because I. I knew I. I figured we'd probably talk about wine last. And I. And I wanted to try and couch the idea of wine as failure in action because it's like it's. It's rotten. It's. It's fruit that's gone fermented.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Exactly.

[David Duchovny]

So maybe. Maybe that's the lesson for us all here is, you know, that we can only hope that our rotten fruit.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Yes. Is a pleasure. It's enjoyable.

[David Duchovny]

Something we savor and can get other people high.

[Kyle MacLachlan]

That's exactly right.

[David Duchovny]

Some thoughts about getting to catch up with Kyle McLaughlin. I said this before when I was talking to Rob Lowe and I said how important it was for me when I was starting out that I ran into, you know, him being number one or two or whatever on the set, treating me like I mattered. I had, like one line. Club goer number three was my name of my character. And similar, I got a chance to say thank you to Kyle because he also was a generous number one on the set when I did Twin Peaks. This characteristic, this ability that some people have not to close up shop against the intruder or the new person, not to circle the wagons, but to embrace them. This is something that Kyle gave to me so, so long ago. And hopefully I. I gave it back, paid it forward myself when I had the chance to be in that position on. Thanks so Much for listening to Fail Better. If you haven't subscribed to Lemonada Premium yet, now's the perfect time because guess what? You can listen completely ad free. Plus you'll unlock exclusive bonus content like the full version of my post interview thoughts that you won't hear anywhere else. That's more of my recaps of interviews with guests like Charlie Sheen, Gene Simmons and Judd Apatow. Just tap that subscribe button on Apple Podcasts or head to lemonade premium.com to subscribe on any other app. That's lemonadepremium.com don't miss out. Fail Better is production of Lemonada Media in coordination with King Baby. It is produced by Keegan Zema, Aria Brachi and Donnie Matias. Our engineer is Brian Castillo. Our SVG VP of Weekly is Steve Nelson. Special thanks to Carl Ackerman, Tom Krupinski and Brad Davidson. The show is executive produced by Stephanie Whittles, Wax, Jessica Cordova Kramer and me, David Duchovny. The music is also by me and my band, the lovely Colin Lee, Pat McCusker, Mitch Stewart, Davis Rowan and Sebastian Modak. You can find us online at Lemonada Media and you can find me at David Duchovny. Followers Fail Better wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad free on Amazon Music with your prime membership. You know when you're just going about your busy day and a voice asks you something like why do people have crushes?

[Kyle MacLachlan]

Or do dogs know their dogs?

[David Duchovny]

The Brainz podcast is here to help. Every episode answers tough questions with funny skits, cool facts and more. It's a science show for kids of all ages. Whether you grew up with J, mtv, TLC or tmz, brainson is for you. Listening may induce uncontrollable laughter and turn backseat squabbles into harmonious car trips. Find Brains on wherever you get your podcasts.