Other Things Kyle


People Online Chat Transcript University of Washington Alumni Magazine Twin Peaks 2nd Season Press Kit Twin Peaks Sounds

People Online Chat Transcript - November 20, 1997

"If you speak to many directors and producers, you know that they like to see you do something you've done before - so audiences can see you doing it again. They feel safer with a known quality."

"That's all acting is, really - listening."

PEOPLE Online: Hi everyone. I'm Patrizia DiLucchio, this is PEOPLE Online on Pathfinder - and tonight we're talking to actor Kyle MacLachlan.

Eccentric Twin Peaks FBI Agent Dale Cooper may seem out of place playing Vernon, the conservative husband of Natassia Kinski in director Mike Figgis' new film, One Night Stand. Where are the doughnuts? Where's the cherry-pie? But playing against type is nothing new for actor Kyle MacLachlan. Consider some of the other roles that make up his filmography: the young avatar Paul Atreides in David Lynch's Dune, keyboard player Ray Manzarek of the infamous rock 'n' roll group The Doors in Oliver Stone's eponymously named filmic bio; a college student trapped on the wrong side of the curtain in the nightmare world of Blue Velvet, (Lynch again); the cynical impressario in Paul Verhoeven's controversial collaboration with screen writer Joe Eszterhaus, Showgirls. Most recently MacLachlan starred with another Figgis alumnae, Elisabeth Shue, in The Trigger Effect.

Welcome to cyberspace, Kyle. Do you do much web-surfing on your own?

Kyle MacLachlan: I don't have a computer, I'm sorry to admit.

PEOPLE Online: That's okay. We love you for yourself alone.

Brief word about the drill - see that cute little red question mark icon? If you click on that, you are instantly transported to the question queue from whence you may leave a question for Kyle.

Alternatively, you can type "/ask" (without the quotation marks!)

Kyle - can you tell us a little bit about your role in One Night Stand?

Kyle MacLachlan: My character's name is Vernon, Robert Downey Jr's brother ...kind of the more conservative brother - in fact, he's not real comfortable with the way his brother lives, and he has a hard time dealing with watching his brother die from AIDS. There's the contradiction between loving his brother and the anger initially directed at his brother. But then he has a little epiphany and realizes his anger should be directed at the disease. And he comes to love his brother again.

PEOPLE Online: What attracted you to the project? Was it the script, the chance to work with Mike Figgis, the chance to be married to Natassia Kinsi etc?

Kyle MacLachlan: [Laughs] It was the chance to work with Mike and the challenge to take on a character who appeared on paper to be a bit conservative and a bit unsympathetic, and to allow the audience to understand his journey a little bit. I wasn't interested in playing a one-dimensional guy who was there to serve the purpose of people resenting that type of character. I wanted to show a guy who had the dilemma of not really understanding his brother's life style but who in the end did not allow that to interfere with his love for his brother.

PEOPLE Online: One Night Stand was initially a script by Joe Eszterhaus that was revised by Mike Figgis. I've always gotten the impression watching Figgis' movies that he lets his actors improvise more than most directors. Was that true on One Night Stand? How much of Vernon started as an improvisation?

Kyle MacLachlan: I don't know about Mike's previous work but certainly in One Night Stand it was very improvisational - in fact I thought the whole movie had a feel of looseness to it that was very interesting to me as an actor.

The most obvious moments of improv that showed up on the screen? For Vernon, it was when he removed his gloves.

Vernon makes a gesture towards his brother; he hugs him, he makes physical contact for the first time since learning his brother is infected. And he removes his gloves. A subtle moment, perhaps, but telling about his character.

PEOPLE Online: One Night Stand hasn't received the warm critical reviews that Mike Figgis' earlier Leaving Las Vegas did. Are reviewers being fair to it?

Kyle MacLachlan: No. I think they're being hypercritical. I don't think they're able to go with the poetry of the movie.

The movie is very delicate and very subtle. I don't think the critics allowing it a chance to breathe and live. Critics tend to dwell upon and become fascinated by the obvious. A very telling example of this is the reaction to Robert Downey's performance in the film, a very moving performance as a man dying of AIDS. That's where the critics focused their attention - because it's a flashy, edgey, politically correct characterization, the most obvious thing to write about, particularly in view of certain events in real life.

I've seen the movie four times now - which is three times more than I usually see any movie I'm in. I've seen it with with a variety of different audiences, Italian, French and American, and they all seemed to enjoy it, different chords resonated.

The film asks more of an audience too. Mike does some interesting things with cameras, stylistically certainly but also he makes commentary a little bit with his camera in this one. Instead of embracing that because it is delicate and different and unusual, the overwhelming reaction was one of pessimism.

PEOPLE Online: We did an interview with Mike Figgis recently and here's what he had to say about your performance in One Night Stand
Good actor. Good Actor. Strong. He's been typecast as the post-Lynchean geek, you know. And he's not. He's someone who as he grows older will be such a great middle aged actor - he's a guy who could play the president easily. He has that kind of solid believability.
Figgis seems to be implying here that your association with David Lynch is kind of a mixed bag for you as an actor. Would you agree?

Kyle MacLachlan: [Laughs] Watch out Harrison Ford!

Certainly it was both positive and negative. From where I am today, I view it as mostly positive. David is the reason I did my first movie - and my second movie. David and Mark Frost were the people who brought me into Twin Peaks. My situation is not unique. If you speak to many directors and producers, you know that they like to see you do something you've done before - so audiences can see you doing it again. They feel safer with a known quality.

I could go back and say I wish this, I wish that about those early years - but once you stay around the business long enough, you realize what it's all about.

But the work I did with Mike and the work I did on The Trigger Effect, are directions I chose consciously - to move more into a human realm. If you want to live long in this industry, you have to do that.

The funny thing is the stuff I did in Mike's movie is what I do the best. And people are complaining because the performance was too naturalistic!

PEOPLE Online: But in a sense, your best work with Lynch has always been naturalistic: you're the yardstick of sanity against which various bizarre happenstances can be calibrated, no?

Kyle MacLachlan: Certainly in Blue Velvet, that was the case. Twin Peaks' Dale Cooper was a bit more stylized.

PEOPLE Online: How do you prepare for a role - do you use any type of "Method?"

Kyle MacLachlan: No. It's just a lot to do with reading and rereading the script and envisioning the scene, and a lot of imagination. And experimentation. Probably the reason why I enjoyed the work with Mike the most of all my recent work was because he really encouraged me to experiment and let my emotions go. I also rely a tremendous amount on the other actors around me. One great thing about my stage training way back in my early days was simple listening and reacting. That's all acting is, really - listening.

PEOPLE Online: Who's the best actor that you've worked with in terms of "learning" from them?

Kyle MacLachlan: I've learned something from everybody. Albert Finney was impressive - for his work effort and for his tremendous love of life. He enjoys himself at work and he enjoys himself at play.

PEOPLE Online: Thanks so much for coming online with us tonight, Kyle. It was great fun!

Kyle MacLachlan: I've enjoyed it too!
UW Alumni Magazine
Provided by S. Hamm

Will F.B.I Agent Dale Cooper eventually find out who killed Laura Palmer? Or was it curtains for Cooper after a knock at his hotel room door turned out to be an assailant who delivered a bullet in the direction of his chest? Fans of the off-beat ABC-TV series Twin Peaks have been bondering that question for months while waiting for the fall return of the series, which stars UW graduate Kyle MacLachlan in the role of an unorthodox FBI agent sent to a small town to solve the murder of an ex-homecoming queen.

Becasue much of the series is filmed in the King County communites of Snoqualmie and North Bend, Twin Peaks represents both a physical and professional homecoming for MacLachlan, a Yakima native who graduated cum laude with a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1982.

MacLachlan enrolled at the UW in liberal arts but felt the pull of professional theater when, after his freshman year, he played the lead role in a summer stock adaption of Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward Angel. Convinced that he had found his calling, MacLachlan returned to campus and auditioned for the UW's rigorous Professional Actor's Training Program, where he spent the next three years working up to 14 hours per day, six days a week, learning the craft of acting.

MacLachlan was appearing in a production of Tartuffe at Seattle's Empty Space theater when he met a Hollywood casting agent. One audition and two screen tests later, MacLachlan was cast in the lead role in the 50-million, Dino de Laurentiis science fiction epic Dune, where he began his collaboration with director David Lynch. In 1985 he appeared in Lynch's Blue Velvet and was tapped by the controversial director to be the star of Twin Peaks. MacLachlan recently made his off-Broadway debut in The Palace of Amateurs and will portray the legendary keyboardist Ray Manzarek in an upcoming film biography of the 1960s rock group the Doors, a project of Oscar-winning writer/director Oliver Stone.
Twin Peaks Press Kit
ABC CAPITAL CITIES/ABC, INC. TELEVISION NETWORK GROUP
"TWIN PEAKS"
- 1990-91 -

KYLE MacLACHLAN - FBI Agent Dale Cooper

Agent Cooper has an almost prescient understanding of human motives. Calm and cool, he blends a methodical temperament with a taste for the unusual. He is entranced with the majestic country around Twin Peaks.

Kyle MacLachlan and director David Lynch began a long-term friendship and working collaboration during the filming of the science-fiction classic, "Dune," in 1983. Their creative relationship continued with Kyle's leading role in Lynch's next feature, the critically acclaimed "Blue Velvet." ABC's "Twin Peaks" represents the third teaming of the talented actor and preeminent director, and marks Kyle's debut as a television series lead.

Kyle was born and raised in Yakima, Washington, the eldest of three sons. In 1977, he entered the University of Washington in Seattle, where he studied in the Professional Actor Training Program. Following graduation with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, he immediately joined the prestigious Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. He returned to Seattle in 1982 to perform at the Empty Space Theater. While appearing on stage there, he auditioned for the film "Dune," was brought to Los Angeles to meet David Lynch, and soon plunged into a arduous, year-long production schedule in Mexico City.

In addition to "Blue Velvet," Kyle also starred in "The Hidden." He recently co-starred in the soon-to-be-released "The Boyfriend School," and also co-starred in an off-Broadway play, "The Palace of Amateurs," at New York's Minetta Lane Theater.

Kyle makes his home is Los Angeles. He enjoys traveling and recently returned from a month-long tour through Ireland, England and Scotland with his girlfriend. He also likes to play golf and pick-up basketball.
Twin Peaks Sounds

Diane...
Are you Laura Palmer?
A damn fine cup of coffee!
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