Kyle MacLachlan: Even I ‘Don’t Pretend to Understand What David Lynch Does’

Christian Zilko
·2 min read
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Even after nearly 40 years of filmmaking, David Lynch remains one of cinema’s most enigmatic artists. While the meaning behind films like “Mulholland Drive” and “Inland Empire” might be a mystery, Lynch’s work continues to captivate cinephiles. Including, apparently, some of his closest collaborators.

In a new interview with The A.V. Club, Kyle MacLachlan, who Lynch directed in “Dune,” “Blue Velvet,” and “Twin Peaks,” revealed that he’s often in the dark about Lynch’s artistic vision

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“I don’t pretend to understand much of what David does,” MacLachlan said. “But I do recognize that I’m his conduit through these worlds, and that’s a challenge—and also, I feel pretty good about that. There’s a confidence that I understand what’s necessary for me to do with David. And I think sometimes, and I think it happens in Hollywood a lot, there’s a template that you are stamped with when you’re identified with a certain something, and you can either choose to reinforce that template or try to recast the template. You want to melt it down and start again. But I just kept coming back to it.”

The actor added that the nature of Lynch’s films means that fans don’t need answers to every question, but should simply focus on experiencing Lynch’s work for what it is.

“There’s still the large chunks of data that I don’t understand, and I don’t need to understand, honestly,” he said of Lynch. “His movies are experiential, really, and they ask a lot of questions, but there are not a lot of answers provided.”

And while MacLachlan doesn’t pretend to understand everything that David Lynch does, he knows that there’s always a method to the madness

“I think he knows exactly what he’s doing and what he wants to create, but I don’t think I always understand why,” MacLachlan said. “I think there are things in his films that are there just to put you in a frame of mind, and he’s sort of saying ‘stop thinking and just exist in this time now.’ So I just pretty much give over control honestly to him. I know he’s got the road map.”

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