Kyle MacLachlan on 28 Years of Twin Peaks' *Blowing Your Mind*

starring in Lynch's dark masterpiece Blue Velvet. Then, in his own words, he tried out for Hollywood's big romantic leads and it never quite worked despite his talent and good looks, But his collaboration with Lynch turned into one of the great actor director partnerships. McLaughlin just seems to fit in Lynch's uncanny worlds. Do you remember everything? You would never have predicted it from what he watched as a kid. We were actually restricted to Disney movies. Why do you

think that is? Our parents were very conservative, conservative, tremendously conservative. Yeah, some interviews you did talk about you know, throwing footballs and playing golf and flying kites with your brothers. But was there any predisposition toward the kind of vibe that you would then enter into this world with Lynch? Meaning, were you like a sci fi fan? Was a sci fi fan? I was? Yeah, Yeah, definitely. It was a huge Dune fan. Found that book when I was in

junior high school. So odd that I ended up being cast in the role of Paul the Prince. Yeah, I didn't seem to made no sense to me. I said, this is just completely surreal. And that started the relationship with David Lynch. How did Lynch find you? I was found by a casting agent, a junior casting agent in Seattle. I was working up there at the theater. I had finished, uh graduated within the last year, I guess, and I

was working in the theater doing Tartuff. We were doing an adaptation of TARTUFI was on my way to New York to go do seek my fortune basically, and call came through. Hey, there, that casting agent in in in Seattle had obviously a pipeline too. She actually had been sent out on the you know what they do, the crazy circuit. Yeah, so she was Elizabeth Lustig was her name.

She's part of the casting company, and she came through and she met a number of people that day and I read in a hotel room, you know, the Olympic Four Seasons Hotel, downtown Seattle, and she put me on tape, you know, that New Experience, and UH took it down and showed it to David Lynch and Raphaela Dadtorrentists and they said, oh, okay, bring him down, we'd like to meet him. And met him and I met him and what was that like? It was really like meeting a pal.

It was like we sat in an office at Universal in one of the tiny bungalows weighing the back. I have no idea where it was. And we just talked about anything. But we didn't talk about noon. We just talked about because he was from the Northwest and I was in the Northwest, and so we talked about growing up there and what it was like in the summertime, and we did and we talked a little bit about

red wine because it was like red wine. And we just chat it and uh and then he said, he said in the end, I said, okay, here's the script, twiny voice, and learn this. Learn these scenes. Kale, he didn't call me Kale yet. Learn these scenes and then come back in a few days and we'll shoot him. You do a very good lunch, but we don't expect that of you. You coming. How long did it take you to shoot your part? And doing you play the lead in the film? Yeah? In the film. So it

was seven months. We were in Mexico stoity for seven months, which felt totally normal to me. I was like the first experience in the first David Lynch to Mexico for seven months. That's what you shot for seven months, for seven months. That's why it was forty million dollars back then. Well, I don't know if it was forty million dollars the paper, I don't and you believe everything you're reading the pure anyway, we he David was there for a year and a half.

They waited for a year and a half film because they had second unit thirty and they had all special effects. He had everything down there, and um he was I think it was you start shooting them. Who was the DP? Do you remember Freddy Francis Frans had no idea and he was using a kind of a light box thing. It was a whole crazy thing and they were smoking up all this. I I got work on stage. You know, this is this is weird. I didn't have to do my own makeup, which is fantastic. Um. You know they

have people for that. You know, it was all this new stuff. They put you in, these crazy costumes. Bob Ringwood was was the costume. I did the shadow with Bob ring the Great Bob Yea. We called him Rinky Bobwood. Actually David called them rankey Bobwood. I didn't. I didn't call him Ricky bobbin had a great get, a great group of people. Yeah, it was a big movie, a huge movie Tony Masters with a design pruction designer. I mean, we just we had an extraordinary talented group of people.

When you get down there with your first movie. For me, the first time I'm on camera, I'm we joke and say that the soap opera that I first did here in New York, we called it off off television. I mean nobody was watching the show when it was canceled, right when my contract was over two years now and we did the show The Doctors on NBC And you get to work out of the white hot spotlight and

your first movie is a big movie. Did you feel pressure or you know, yeah, it was just a naive I'm here to act and you know the kind of the funny thing about training and maybe remember just coming out of school, you really feel like you can do anything. They still in you this sort of sense. And it's also being twenty years old. You really were confident. Yeah, I mean you're you're confident of the point of like

you can't even consider anything else. This is what you do. Um. So we did it, you know, and we made a movie. And the deal that I had in place, which is difficult contractually, was that I could not appear in any other film or television, could not even begin work on film or television until Dune was released, which was not but yeah, but that's that's so they were. But so I had nothing else to work on, nothing else to back it up, with nothing else to go, And of

course Dune came out. It was not well, it was unfortunately, which is part of the negotiations with the Dayla Mens company. They were really really tough. Um. I also had five non five Dune pictures and three non Dune options. The contract was this, Oh my god, it was and you were in the Mercury. You were in the Arso Mills Mercury Theater. Years I could still be doing doing hap having a good cigar, aren't you? Would you? It's it was one of those But what can I do? You know?

I mean, I'm what was working for equity hundred and eighty five dollars a week to this when you go out seven months later, what's changed? I had friends, now, I had an agent, which was great, um, but I hadn't spent any time in Los Angeles. Really. I've literally gone from Seattle shoot down to Mexico City, um. And then I went back to Seattle because I couldn't do

film and television, so I go to Los Angeles. So I kind of skipped it and went home, went home when I did a play there again, and I went to New York a little bit and hung out with some friends and just kind of idle my time until the movie finally came out and the expectations were so high and completely just shattered and I was ready to go to work day I was. I was kind of disappointed, but I was also like, well, you know, we did

it once, We'll do it again. I had this kind of crazy optimism, like, okay, ware, we go the God so Bad over. I think it had a lot to do with just naivetat of youth and just feeling like it's okay, well, you know, I got an agent. We're gonna go and we're gonna make it happen. So I literally packed up my car. I was in Seattle the time, and drove down to Los Angeles, found a place to stay and started what happens between you and Lynch on the set of the movie that you become his DeNiro?

You know, I mean, you're his male protagonist. I don't, again and again and again. Why I don't. I wish I had an answer. I don't really know. I have discussed it. We get along great. I mean there's been various theories, you know, like I'm the guy that can take you through the world. He handed me the script of Blue Velvet while while we were filming Dune and said, this is what I like to do next, and take a look at the role of Jeffrey. And you know, he gave it to me and I said, okay, I

took a look at it. Read the script. This is my second film script today I read. The first one was the second is due moment. And I read it and and it was very powerful. So I mean, oh my god, you know, like highly charged and a journey to be honest that I that I could recognize, could understand. Oh my lord, it is a crazy movie. And said that you took the script and wanted your parents approval of the script before you do it. I did, so I got it. And they didn't take a look at this.

And my dad read it and he was like, okay, my mom read it. Didn't say anything. You know. I like it. And and she had been already diagnosed with ovarian cancer, was in the middle of that battle. And I said, well, screw it, that's it, but not to do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do if it's an upset her. I don't want to put her in that position and I don't want that kind of pressure or nothing like that. We're not gonna do it. We'll find something else. And I called David

and I said, David, I can't. I can't do it, you know, And I kind of explained him a little bit and he understood. To his credit, he says, Gail, want to understand. So there was a you know a few months that he was trying to be cast I think he did. But at the same time, I was like, you know, listen, the offers were not pouring in, to be honest, and I just couldn't shake the script. And so I can kind of came back again, and I kind of and I kind of went to him as well,

and I said, David, I really would. I think I really need to do this. And I said that to my mom. I just said to her, I said, Mom, I think it's gonna do what I gotta do, what I gotta do, and I think it's gonna be okay, and I don't want you to worry. Did she lose her battle with it? Then she run that time? Yes, I joke. You know it's dark, you remember, But I say she didn't live long enough to see it, which is probably a good idea. She was fifty one. But

your dad survived. He still alive. My dad passed a few about five years ago. Now. He was still close with him at all. Yeah, yeah, what do you think he was? He was, well, he's a critic. Turns out it turns out I didn't know that, isn't my dad? Dad said, you know, um, but he he one of those dads that's really really proud when he's with his friends and around and with me proud too, but also when it's you know, said that one wasn't one of

your best. You know, he would say like that, you know, but but but I knew it came from a place of him wanting me to be my best, you know what I mean. And he just could not not tell a lie. That was my dad couldn't tell a lie. But my dad, he had only one note for me and all my he passed away three and I just was starting out on TV and soap operas and going to do pilots, and my dad said to me, completely unrelated to my work at all. He said, you know what you need to do. You need to develop a

walk like John Wayne has a walk. I mean he has like a what you need to come up with a work if they have a thing you do where everybody it's like a senior show, like, huh, that's great. I'm gonna go back to Strasburg and get some classes. And don't you love it because now you know we're at the time you're like you know, now you're like he's just doing VESTI can to help. He's like, this is what he knew, and he's like, you know, I

can see that in my dad. It's the love that he was inside that body was like going through a really small channel to get out. Just had a hard time getting out, and that's the way it got out. But I recognize that as can just complete love. Now we go into this business and everybody in our lives who are civilians, shall we say, who have their relationship with the movies and television, they are fans. They watch what they watch, they like what they like, and don't

like what they don't like. And so when somebody that there intimate with some of their very close to goes into that business and then we find it what the business is really like. It's a job, I mean, and there are sometimes moments of artistic elevation that you have and and kind of a state you can get into which is lovely, but not always where we end up. And they don't get that. So then you go and do blue Velvet. And then much of response to the

I remember this. We we had a screening in the valley. You know how they used to do that they should do uh, And they wouldn't tell the audience, or they would say, Hey, we're gonna show, Come come here, you're gonna watch the show. You're gonna fill out these cards and then we're gonna figure out what it's all about. So they were testing basically, and there were some of the worst cards that they'd never mind hope for media or hits this theory. Gosh, she was awful. Um and

so we were all just kind of like depressed. And then Pauline Kale wrote about it extensively and started this. I don't know if she would initially started it, but that was one of the early One of the early review is that that I think explained it to people in a way or appointed them in the right direction, or helped them to get a sense of what the world that they were seeing was about. And that started the slow kind of movement of acceptance and criticification of them.

Very good. Yeah, when do you begin the first round of twin peaks? What year? So that was eight nine. Now listen, I'm just a kid from Massive Peak Wick. And I mean when I was a kid, I watched you know, like f Troop, I love its heroes, Jones on movies. I would always watch every movie program on TV because there was no HBO then, and there was no VHS, no, no, no nothing. When you go to do Twin Peaks, you would you say that the lynching and experience kicks up another notch now in terms of

what you're shooting and how Yeah, without question. First of all, the role Cooper, you know was I read it and I was like, this is this is magnificent, This is pretty special, and and you really were going to tell this story of Twin Peaks, You're really going to do this day. I mean it was one of those kind of like because this isn't like any kind of TV

I've ever seen. And so we all signed on, I think to the person I signed on with, you know, and you obviously it's a five and a half year, six year commitment that you have to sign to, and we're all sort of laughing and giddy, were saying like like that will ever happen? You know? He's like, are you kidding me? This is gonna be a one, one and done. You know, this is gonna be a back back door pilot, you know, so it'll be a completed,

finished unit, you know, and it will be it. They're never gonna say They're never gonna buy this cut too, you know, they're like an ABCC and goes, oh, we'd like to buy more now. They made the decision well well after we'd finished, you know, and they started to screen it and they got excited about this, and so we said, okay, So we went and we filmed seven more episodes of but nothing had gone to air yet, so they only had the pilot that they thought was great.

And then they had seven shows and now they were going to put them on the air. So it wasn't the thing where you put one on the air and you kind of see how it does and you put the next one on the air and say it like it is now. We had had banked these episodes. They committed, they did and you did how many seasons? We just did a year and a half, not even a half. It was like thirty two hours. It was like what

you would call now a limited series. Yeah, but internally no, they made it, you know, this was this was something that they wanted to run for a while, but but just went off the rails. You know, they were second season. Yeah. What was the health of his film career in ninety one when you started doing that? Was he having any success. Yeah, Lynch was Yeah, I mean he's always it's always. I think he had Uh so he did. He wasn't detouring

into TV because he didn't couldn't make any films in him. No, No, I think he found it as as another medium to let's experiment and see what this could do. You know, um first freak people that every week? Yeah, one of those. And and when does a filmmaker like that on all tour like that come to television? It was. It was the first of his kind. So that was the fun

thing about it. And when you're doing scenes, I mean I watched the The two point oh that was recently, when you're sitting there and the character of she was somebody who's going you can do it better than I can. I never I never spoke backwards. That's the whole thing was the great I'll sign you the seriously. But when you're shooting scenes with him like that, is it readily available to you? Is it readily discernible to you? What

the intention of the scene. You're a classically trained actor who's done theater and films, and uh, now you're doing this thing, which is a little not absurd but very strange. Is Lynch sitting down when you're saying, oh, Kane out Kyle, this work. Is it what this scene is about and this world we're looping back on it? Or do you just plain it's easy to discern it's I don't say. I wouldn't say it's easy to discern. I think that the reality within this scene David and I, it's a

lot of different things. So sometimes we'll find it, find it in the scene as we're doing it. Sometimes it's there. He always knows exactly what he wants and what he's doing. It's just it's gonna map bring me along, you know. But I learned early on. I used to do this in Dune. I used to go in and bother him hours.

I would try to talk to him about this scene and what this meant and going here and doing it, and he would listen to me for about eight minutes, and then he I could just see that the blind just would come down and be like, okay, that's it. So that I's always said okay, okay, a little less in blue Velvet, I asked him a little less, and then finally between peaks, I I stopped asking him all together to explain. I just said all right, we'll find you know, I know I kind of know what I

got to talk about it too much, talk about too much. No, he find it. Yeah, and he doesn't like to talk about he's the finished product. He said, you go watch it. You tell me what you think. You know, I have that experience, you know, I know what it means to me. But he is loath to like do a lot of hand whole they have. Yeah, he wants people to go on this journey, you know, as as he's a true artist. You know, he wants people to experience this thing, you know,

And so that's what we do. So that shows on for a year and a half and that becomes another cult masterpiece. What does that do for you so that you're making development deals with ABC? You know what? I just fu every time that he handed you with the key, you know, I just you dropped them down the d I did. I did, to be honest, and I did. Seriously. I had this opportunity like that and I and I just was like great, but I you know, I didn't know how to generate or that's not Do you look

back and wish you had? Are you more leaved in the wind? I looked back and wish I had. I wish I had been smarter, you know, um and had. But then at the same time, I'm going like, you know what, I don't know how I would have done that. You know, I just wasn't built that way. And that's to produce yourself and to market yourself as a product. Yeah, it wasn't, although you know, and part of that is

part of that is age. You know, you I look back and not that I know what everyone did, but you know, my heroes were guys like Dean and Montgomery, Clift and Brando and these guys, and and there was a real in at least I believed whether it was true or not, I believed, oh that you know. It was all about the craft and the art and finding playing character and doing that kind of thing. But never any thought towards Okay, this is a story that I really like, a character that I really like, and they

were they were out there. I just didn't know how to grasp them. Twin Peaks star Kyle McLaughlin. Like McLaughlin, Stacy Keach is probably best known for playing a mystery solving detective. For Keach, it was Mickey Spillane's Mike camera but His incredibly varied career from King Lear to The Simpsons makes for great stories. Plus, he stars in this year's film noir Girlfriend's Day, alongside Believe It or Not, David Lynch. Teaches credits go back to nineteen sixty four.

What's it like for you now to work with younger actors? Do you find that the good ones operate the same way or are they different? They're different, They're very different. But why wow, you know, I mean, every moment is something different. The only one was consistent was inconsistency. As a younger actor, I probably would have gotten nuts, relied

on a pattern of something. Well, that's right, But I like I like that, I like spotman, and I like flexibility, as we've also learned to the handle with our full conversation is that Here's the thing dot Org after the break, more from Kyle McGlaughlin. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Kyle McLaughlin has been on a few truly legendary sets, including Oliver Stone's The Doors, in which he plays Raymond Zack, the band's keyboardist. Oh my god,

that was amazing. First of all, VAL's performance and that was. It was incredible, perfect, just perfect. He was unbelievable. He was the guy. Everybody wanted that job. Everybody who was age appropriate and physically appropriate and could even remotely play that character wanted to play Jim Morrison with Oliver. I mean, I'm sure he auditioned five hundred actors in this. I don't look anything like more than well, but do you think to yourself? It says, And and then that movie,

what was that experience? Like fear? You know? Oliver and I had a little bit of history with Platoon way back in the day where there was some talk about me doing one of the roles there and it didn't work out. But he's finicky, but he came back to me for for for yeah, for Raymond's Eric, and I was kind of like, what did you? Were you a Doors fan? Kind of I mean, as yourself in their music. I learned because I grew up playing the piano, So

I took a little keyboard. There's one of the corner right there, like one of those, and I just learned all the songs. The trouble was and they kept changing the songs. That was the problem. But I could play, We could almost perform as a band, if we with if Robbie Kreeger, because Frank Wally was on the guitar, if he had a guitar to harden. Remember Frank, he knew a little bit, but we needed Kreeger. So when Robbie would play with us, we could actually play a

couple of songs like the Doors. It was that I put the keyboard or could you play Blue Sunday for me right now? Highly doubtful. I love that it was, but it was an experience. It was like like that seven months in the desert. No, but it was as close close to that as I had been. Yeah, but it was an experience. It was a giant machine, you know. And I was a little yeah. Yeah. We were shooting

in Candle Sleep Park. We were shooting, UM five cameras, Bob's on five cameras, were performing and Joe ready, do you know what? Okay? Joey's first, right, So Joe, who has a voice verson a little bitch. He's got one of the big megaphones in the bullhorn, and he's like and he makes an announcement. He says, um, to all the women in the audience, if you would like to earn an extra hundred dollars you could take off your top during and anyway, And we're all kind of like,

he can he ask men do that? Crazy the sag rule book. Yeah, it's impossible, you know so, and it's not gonna happen, not gonna happen. Did anybody do it? Cut to we look out, we've gotten Suddenly they were like fifty women off they go. They We're like what, and they're on the guys shoulders. Of course they do. And we're all up on stage and this is all happening, and the cameras are all nuts and we're like we can't look because we're just seeing the crimit climate we're

living in right now. That is disgusting, terrible, disgusting that that happened. That's so wrong. But but back then it was do you refresh my memory? You do you record their music or you lip sync to play to play back? I mean, obviously like my fire is this big solo? Do we create that in the film? Yeah, yeah, we don't know, you're a big moment. It was like it was one of the first days of filming. We're out of the beach and we were shooting and and we're

trying to we're trying to find a song. We're trying to find a song. You know, how do you play that as an actor? Oh you're messing around, you know? And you kind and Ray says, ye, give me, guys, give me a few minutes. I gotta figure this out. So they drop on down to the beach. Saw the guys and you hear over the track while they're on the beach. The lead kind of a mistake two three, and finally he nails it. Okay, guys, come back in. I got it. Two minutes later he was like, Okay,

that's how we're going to play it. And that was what was he like? Ray, Yeah, he was. I met him twice. He didn't hang out a lot. He didn't hang out. He and Oliver were not We're not best of friends. Those guys are never cool. With the impression I got, I could be wrong. I don't want to say the wrong thing, but the impression I got is those guys are never cool with representations of you know, and and kind of and kind of grave robbing Morrison,

representations of their work. They're very, very proprietary. I think Ray felt like he was, you know, he's the keeper of the myth and here was Oliver coming in and trying to make it his own and change and change it, you know. And Ray had a very specific idea about what it was and what it meant. Was his idea, Well, I think you know he Jim was to him the greatest thing ever. I mean and and and he and he was, you know, I mean, Morrison's made him, making

Jim less damaged. Maybe yeah, he was. He was a god. You know. The conversations I had was Ray while we were filming versus Um. I found that the best source information was actually going back to the interviews and just watching the behavior and the physicality and how they said and spoke and talked to each other, and that to me was the better indicator of what was really happening with the band, as opposed to listening to Ray. Ray told me some great stuff and great stories, but it

was all through the lens of time. What about Robbie. I didn't speak to Robbie. I don't know. I'm only asking because the film is so voluptuous and so wonderful. A lot of people have said, you know, it's like that's not really remotely The Val is stunning. I mean, I put Val in a category with like um Rayliota. Here's two guys that they should have won the Oscar and Val should have won the Oscar. It wasn't even

for the doors. And I think there are two guys who I am I'm not saying this in any harsh way, but they're almost two guys were like they never recovered from that, Like they can't believe they didn't get there do that. That was that, that kind of role, that's the full expression of everything Vale was as a performer. That was it. He just put it all out, he did and he didn't get what he deserved. That's always very very kind of cripple, but it's very demoral. Yeah,

you've got to be able to come through that. Yeah, yeah, okay. Now my other favorite you you even when you I'm saying this out of love for you, I mean I'm a huge fan of yours. And even when you do the movie and the movie's nutty in front of I love show Girls. What was you worked with a lot of which, Yeah, that was the that was the decision. It is like, jeez, you've got Paul Verehoven. I'm a huge fan of Verehoven. I mean, I loved RoboCop. Come on.

I mean that is just something that's this magic, basic instinct that just come out. I was like, that's powerful as well. I'd like to stuff from before. It's Oldier of Orange, it's Betters and stuff you've done before. I was like, this is an amazing director and his vision. You know, he's gonna take Vegas and it's gonna be you know, it's gonna be dark, and it's gonna be visceral, and he's going to really expose this whole world. You know. Esther House wrote the script. Estherhouse at the time was

was the guy. He's huge. So you're like you're looking at this and you're going, okay, And I get to play a character that's slightly devan. He's tough, he's got a dark side. To that point, I hadn't had a chance to do much of that. You know, as as a young actor, you're looking to try to find a way to expand your potentiality. I guess two people that are that are casting and I was like, this is a this is to no brainers is going to be great.

I like the scenes was very good. I got into it, you know, worked hard, came up with a kind of a weird look sheep, you know, like one of those like a wolf in in sheep's clothing kind of thing. I just wanted that's my feel for the guy. That's what I wanted him to be like. Because there was manipulating people. Oh yeah, definitely, definitely. So I was like, Okay, I'm gonna play all this is gonna explore this, you know.

And and then there was some you know, some newdity stuff that we had to sort of work out, which was I was fine, you know, I was like, that's okay. He wanted he wanted he wanted to porn. He was like, oh, he was like thinking of European. I was like, one, lies is Europeans. No, we do no, we do full frontal. We do full frontal and and yeah. And she's like yeah. And I was like I'm not so sure. And he was like, what you you don't think you can maintain no action? Oh, no, worries we the digital we put

the digital don't worthy. He thought that my complaint was a fact that oh I wouldn't be able to maintain and you know, so and I said uh, and I said no, no, And then he said digital I said, he said oh, so you can do any size you want and he said, and I said, I was like, oh so anyway. But he wasn't a PERV. He just wanted he wanted everything real, just do what be? What do with the characters there? Yeah, And we were like,

how did that take? The shoot? That was a good you know, that was pretty traditional three months four months of work in his kind and tender with Elizabeth. She hadn't made a lot of films and so she had and he was pretty kind of I mean, there was a lot that went on in that on that movie. I mean, there are a lot of stories that happened, and I she's a sweet girl. She's lovely, you know, something her getting mauled when that movie came out and people said a lot of mean spirit. And I've met

her many times and I absolutely adore her. She's like one of the most adorable women. Such a lovely, lovely she's a sweetheart. And that was a tough thing for her to go through, something I don't think she ever may have recovered from. Um. It was difficult. I mean the filming process was actually phenomenal because we were working in South Lake, Taho. There was a full stage and these were all they were doing, the choreography and everything like.

It was a full blown show. So you'd come in and you watch the show during you know, any perform and stuff. And then when I wasn't working, which is a lot of time, it was one of the best snows that they've had in Sally. So I had my skis in my trailer and I would just get in my car. I swing by because they don't want just gidding obviously, and I just load him. I'm just gonna go get to yeah, back in a little bit. And it was just spectacular. So I'm reading about you and

you meet your wife. You'd obviously dated a couple of very well known women in your life. We will do that. You know, we're the quarterback of the football team, Like, where's the head sheer, Let's get her over here right now. I'm gonna date her and uh um and then um, you can really know and I can relate, and then you you marry your wife. Where you met she was

in the her business when you met her. Yeah, she had been working at Rogers and Cow and she had just left to form her own company called Full Picture her Desire Grouper. I met her at a chiropractor's office. I was in with Um Blake Edwards. He and I shared a room of tractions. Beginning man Edwards just sort of hanging out. Happen Hey, Like, how's he going? I rubbed you a couple of discs in my back and in no I was working up stupid stuff anyway, Um and I was in trying to do distraction therapy to

sort of released the pressure. And so I was in the room and Blake was over there and in his chair and I was in my chair and uh so I gets a little which is kind of good. He's a good guy, and uh desire walked past the door, so there's a you know, I was sitting in the room looked out. She this tall, gorgeous woman walked past and I was like, who's that? You know immediately and the antenna went out, and uh, I said, oh, I kind of find out what's going on. She'll be in

there for a little while. Well like five minutes later, she walked back out again. I was like, this is not good because I was stuck in distraction. So I got out my traction went up to meet her at the front desk, started struck up a conversation, but I was too it felt too weird and I felt too shy to like get any kind of contact numbers. So I just kind of just didn't. Nothing jelled, and I was like, oh god, Okay. So she went on her way and I was like, oh, maybe I can figure

out who she was or where she's from. I don't know. Two nights later, she walked into the Tina Brown party for Talk magazine at the Montreal. She walked in, I was like, hello, and so we stock up a conversation and uh, and it's got numbers and everything like that. At that time, I was felt, you know, you're ready to said. I was like, ready, We've already met you once. Now I can ask you this is a role I could play. Yes, this is there is your boyfriend. There

is some truth to that. Look at I can do this, and it seems like your boyfriend don't for me. When I look at your career and I see you, especially when you do. I mean, I'm not making any jokes about show Girls, because I think there's a lot of

good in that movie. And for you, what I see is you become more of a sexualized leading man were before that the more prominent characters you played were more chase to more pure and heroic, and the libido and the sexuality and the perversions, if you will, are around you and behind you and underneath you and everybody else. But when you do show Girls and then you do other shows like Sex in the City and things like that, you become much more of a classic leading man than

the heroic leading man. And something just didn't you feel that way? I mean, I agree with you about then you would say, I think it was what served me well in Blue Velvet in particular, and that you look at him and you go, here's a pretty chaste young man that gets drawn into something and is attracted to something that is absolutely completely dark, and gets goes through that journey and barely makes it out alive, you know,

singed around the edges. And I think the journey you know, with let's say Sex in the City with Desperate Housewives, is you know, in an environment with a character that is um, you know, he's sort of unusual. There's there's what you see on the surface seems to be normal and fine and everything is good, but underneath that there are some other urges that are king, you know, and you like both what exactly they are, we don't know.

I did. I enjoyed him very much. I um, Sex in the City was you know, it's it's um, it's a little frightening your uncertain ground because you know, with a film, they hand you the material, you know, a to zy what you're gonna be doing. So yeah, it's

right there when you walk into a show like that. UM, and sexon City was one of those you know, I don't know, did you that two years I was meant to come on for just a couple of full season yeah, too, full seasons, so right in the middle, and you don't know. They hand you a script one week and then the next week they hand you another script and suddenly you're doing some crazy thing, you know, with an animal who

knows you know what I mean. It's like and you just like, ah, it keeps you on your toes on edge, you know, and you're and the uncertainty is there, and occasionally i'd have to say, just not comfortable doing this. I'm sorry, you know, it's like it's just a little too I don't know. The thing about TV that people don't realize is that the guy that's going to be the head writer in season five or six, it's just entering Harvard now and he's like he's just starting his

college Education's like he's like eighteen. You're like, who knows who's going to show up? You know, it's a long journey. It's a long road around with TV. And why didn't you have your own show men? Was it you? Did you not want that? Did you not want? I don't want to books? They were six years, they were freedom done. I've done pilot. You know. I did a pilot with Andy McDowell and I thought this is great. You know,

Mike Newell director. You know, you sort of look at the stuff and you're like, he didn't want with you and Andy? Yeah? What was the pilot? Yeah? It was called Joe and it was about it about her. But I was been an experts the ghost had been expert, it would have been would have been better. Um, and the wife talks backwards exactly. It was you and Andy, she's Joe. Yeah. It was like a family drop. It was like a family thing. She was a veterinarian, hit

her mom. I was the boyfriend. It was kind of come back into her life and you know, so it was this group so um, I mean it wasn't built around me, was built around her. But it seemed like it would work and make sense, you know, especially with that kind of pedigree. M. But you just never know. He just never know. And there were others that I tried, and things that you know, had like a short shelf life, you know what I mean, and that just never materialized.

So not without trying, and not without like taking a shot at some good stuff, you know. So when the Lynch two point oh comes your way, was it something you guys had always discussed for a long time? It

was in your pocket for a while. They also need to pop up and go hey a little bit, not not without my also over the years sort of because we're friends and we live close to each other in l A. I've got a house out there, and we see each other frequently, and we love to sit and talk and reminisce a little bit and talk about what's coming up. And I would always say, hey, do you ever think about going back between beaks and revisiting that?

And he would always say no, and I no, no, Well, nothing really going on, you know, and so the no idea has no thoughts to go back at all. He'd also had a difficult time, you know, the television experience. I think ultimately, with David, this was not something that he wanted to go back into, UM, which I understand. It's about having control and that wasn't happening. UM. Somehow he and Mark found a common ground, a common story, a way to go back that that interested them, and

they started working on it. And shortly thereafter David came to me and said, I need to talk to you about something, but he didn't want to talk to me about it over the phone. I said, okay. So we met in New York and he said, we're gonna go back to Twin Peaks. Are you on board? And I said, David, I've always wanted to go back to Peaks, know that, you know. So I gave him my handshake and UH said, let's go, you know, and that Washington I did. That's

all we needed. That's it. It's the bond, you know. And so off he went, and he and Mark were writing, and I knew what was coming up, but I couldn't say anything until it was far announce smart Frost the audience here is yes, good, thank you UM. Because he he and David co wrote, co wrote the entire thing,

so you start shooting that. When we started in the dates, I think we met like in twelve and I think we started filming in twenty started in Seattle, six weeks in Seattle roughly, and then the remainder in Los Angeles, Uh, mostly locations to be We were out, yeah, out in a kind of the desert environment area, and then the

last three or four weeks we were on stage. Was it familiar to you when you came back to that, Not really, because we didn't get back to the character of Cooper until our sixteen and so up to that point, I was two other characters and one little tiny one and got to work with I mean, I'm working with Naomi Watts, who is just adorable and fantastic and so much fun, so talented, so talented, every fiber of her being tiny. He's tiny, He's tiny. David perfectly cast. So

enjoyed working with her. She had the lion's share of the language, you know, because the character I played at that point, Dougie, is almost mute apart from a couple of words. Oh my god, the'd the best right come to work every morning. I got one word in between two paragraphs. Okay, let me go you say nothing, nothing, You stand there and yeah, yeah, people like you know,

they get behind that. So um, that was unexpected. And I didn't know when David said that they're going back, he said, there's gonna be some other things that they're going to have to do. You know, there's a other you know. I was like, I didn't grasp what it was until I sat and read this five plus page script, you know, at one sitting with a couple of cups of coffee. Oh yeah, they said. I couldn't I could not leave the but you can find yourself at the

page that was it. But it was there and I read it and I couldn't believe what what I was being asked to do. It was like someone had given me the greatest gift in the world. Oh yeah, it's like, look at these characters there. Yeah, not just one, not just one great character. There was a second. It was a three great characters. Said this. I said, it is going to test me, and I got scared. You know, you get nervous, and then you you're like, I'm going to do this. I'm gonna do this, and so you

just go on that journey. And I had David if it were another director who knows if I would have felt comfortable to relax and allow him to like watch and tell me Steer, you know what I mean, and that that was what made the difference. See, what I love about your career is that you can play people who are these very tender and very sincere and kind of no name fish characters in your early career, and then who's the darker character in the two point ohr?

And you inhabit that character? You really, really you are. You are the guy that could be like Annie McDowell's boyfriend, and you know, there's a you're bringing a basket full of puppies over to her house, and then you're just this nightmare and and no fun to play. But then once you're in there, you're like the feeling of power I get it is like I am a god in a weird way. That's what I felt when I walked

through that. I mean, true, he's from another dimension, all right, But you're giving yourself that and you're like, wow, it's not something you want to abuse or carry around or let exist other than when the cameras rolling from starting, you know, cut from action to cut, because it's just too it's the ring in the Hobbit. It's like you just you don't want to put that on, you know,

because not unless you really have to. I did the Scottish play the public Theater back in and we had a funny cask because we had a lot of future stars, and I remember I would kill Zach Brath, he played Fleance, and I'd stab him. I put my boot on his shoulder and I peeled him off my sword and that would turn to the people in the front row who were like maybe five away, and I'll be like, are you next, any one of you? And you know, I

mean you want a piece of this. We're literally like trying to bring the audience into like I'm gonna kill you now you want to funk with me? And the second act of Scottish play, you just went went crazy

and you really like lost your mind. So when Jeffrey Nordling would kill me in the end, I was like, I'd lay there and we had a rain effect and rain would be coming down in My body was half in the gate of the castle and half outside, so my body's inside of my head is just outside and rain is coming down and I look up at Jeffrey, who's gonna kill me, and I look up and whisper. In the scene, I go, I'm you do really kill me?

Because I can't do this fucking show. Another time that was so tired of a sword fighting and killing in the hatred and the malice and the anxiety. Yeah, I mean Macbeth going crazy, and I would sit down and look a bit drearily. Non, I go, shove that sword, please jump off. I can't do this. I can't do that. But but that's interesting, you see that, because I think you were right in keeping with that character. What's happening in his mind at the same time. I think he's

probably at that point he's got a death wish. He's exactly he can't stop it. He said, you have to stop it for me. I think so. I think someone stopped me right in the wheelhouse questions. You know, so you have a winery but you make wine? Yeah? Where I make one in Eastern Washington. You know, I grew up in Yakoma's Eastern Washington. I watched the wine world developed there and the quality every year it gets better and better and improves. And I wanted to be honest,

I really wanted I'm interested in wine. I wanted to go back and explore that I'd like to. I wanted to learn more about wine, and that was one of the ways I could do it. And I wanted an excuse to go back and see my dad, who was alive at the time more and I said, did he work with you? We would go together. We went down to the winery together, we tasted together. He participated with it. Yeah, he loved it. You owned it. I partnered with an

existing winery that already had all the infrastructure. There's so much infrastructure and the wine that costs so much money. So I sourced the fruit. I found the barrels that I wanted to use, new French oak barrels. And I have your own labels called Pursued by Bear, Pursued by Bear? And where did that come from? If I may ask, the Winner's Tale, it's right from the Winner's Tale Exit Pursued by a Bear. It's it's my favorite stage times. Oh my god, I love it. I love it. You've

been doing for how long? I started in two thousand five? Was the first finite. We're right now and currently I'm a little not behind it. Just I aged for a while. It's got my out e commerce site. Now do you want to expand that and do more of them? Maybe? You know, it's like couple. Yeah, that's amazing. Oh my god. I think he makes I mean obviously he makes more

money doing the one. And then I thought, yeah, but um, but maybe I don't know what's going to happen, you know, right now, it's just something else, you know what I mean, that's different from the business, that takes you kind of a way into a different place, and something I can share with friends and my wife gets a kick out of it, you know, and I get to go home and see my brothers now and do you know what you're doing next? Yeah? Not no, no, reading, reading some things. Um,

there's some kind of cool things you know out there. Um, I don't know. I love this one line that you were quoted saying not working makes me nervous. I do enjoy my tour, so to be honest, Yeah, oh yeah, I've learned. I said, you know what, something will come and it's up to me to keep plugging away and talking to my agents, my managers and I find the best thing that we can find. But in the meantime,

I'm having a great time with my son. You know, I'm doing my gardening and boxing, you know what's like that, and I love that kind of stuff. Kyle McGlaughlin David Lynch's go to leading man. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing, Paul, to make the baby of THETT make the