Interview - Kyle MacLachlan

[This interview took place in 1986.]

David Lynch's Blue Velvet opened to widespread critical praise and heated public controversy. I've yet to hear a lukewarm reaction. Either you hate the film or you love it. Lynch leaves his audience no alternative. Blue Velvet polarizes audiences as few films - Last Tango in Paris, A Clockwork Orange - can.

Kyle MacLachlan, star of Blue Velvet (as well as Lynch's earlier film, Dune) offers his view on the cinematic phenomenon.

Question: Before you starred in Dune, you had pretty much grown up with the character of Paul Atreides. I mean, you'd read Dune over and over again as a teenager, so you knew what you were getting into. When you did Blue Velvet, how did you prepare for the role of Jeffrey?

Answer: Obviously, I didn't have the advantage of the book here, which I used as a lot of resource material for Dune. But I had a knowledge of the script because David (Lynch) spoke with me during the filming of Dune about it and gave me a draft of the script. So I had a year and a half with it. But I didn't really get down to working on it until about a month or two before we began shooting.

Q: Do you enjoy working with Lynch?

A: I do very much. David is a wonderful human being, a nice person, along with being a brilliant director with quite an interesting vision. Different than anything I've seen before. On the set he prepares a real nice environment for his actors to work in. He's very calm and supportive.

Q: I spoke with Lynch last week, and he told me he thought you were a bit too normal for his next film.

A: Ronnie Rocket? Yeah, we joke about that. He's going even farther out there.

Q: Have you read the script for that?

A: No, I haven't. I've read parts of it. It doesn't seem to be very linear. It wasn't a story I could follow easily. It jumped all over the place. It had some real strange places, which made it interesting. But he's done massive rewrites on it from the one I read, so it's probably changed quite a bit.

Q: Is Lynch restrictive with his actors?

A: Sometimes he can be very restrictive, and sometimes he can be very open. I pretty much tailored myself to what David wanted; I let him be the boss. I just felt that David's vision of what he wanted to make is so specific, that for me to start screwing around with that would just hurt what he wanted to say.

Q: Did the two of you ever butt heads?

A: We've always been able to resolve any major differences. But yeah, there were a couple of things in Blue Velvet - for instance, the final scene. I was arguing for a moment that was a little bit more emotional. I mean, Jeffrey's just killed a guy. There's got to be something that goes with that - whether it's weak knees or whatever. What sort of physical thing happens to him? But David was very strong in wanting that image of Laura Dern and I kissing there in the hall way so he could pan up. I wanted one thing, and he wanted another. I went with his vision, that's the way it is. I fought for it, but...

Q: Lynch made the comment that sometimes when his actors made suggestions like that, he wanted to set them on fire.

A: (Laughter)

Q: How was it working with the other actors?

A: It was a real joy. When you're working with an actor that's wonderful, you don't have to worry about trying to create things that he's not doing for you, or trying to make up for his deficiencies.

Q: How was it relating to them on the set?

A: It's like when you talk with someone and you know they're preoccupied. On one level, they're talking with you and everything's cool, but you feel that they're occupied with something else. That's sort of the way it is on the set. As you get closer to the actual take, you just sort of leave the other person alone. You just sort of hang out.

Q: How much did Dennis Hopper stay in character when we wasn't filming? Was he scary walking around the set, or did he just fall into that when the camera rolled?

A: Dennis is just terrific. I was really scared coming in. I'd heard these stories...

Q: Well he's scary on the screen.

A: In the scene it's wonderful. He gets this look in his eyes, and it's like WHOA...!

Q: It's just a film, Dennis, it's just a film...

A: But he's a consummate actor. You feel threatened as a character, but you know that the guy's not going to be out of control. That's just one of the fine lines. He's not going to do bodily damage to people. As a matter of fact, in the fight sequence - incredible control. You know, when he's punching me beating the hell out of me. Really terrific. He's just a real professional.

Q: You enjoyed getting punched...

A: From Dennis Hopper, yeah, it's okay.

Q: He sort of turns it on, then. Can you just turn it on, or do you have to stay in character?

A: It's like a gas stove and a pot of water, you know. It's on and it's hot, and you can see the bubbles around it. It's always on all day - but you can still be a nice person. And then, when you need it - five or ten minutes before a scene - you sit down in your chair and you start to let that stuff cook. You bring it up, and let it boil for awhile as you do the scene; and then you bring it back down, and let it sit there awhile.

Q: You said Lynch had a very specific idea of what he wanted to do. Were you able to pick up on that easily?

A: David doesn't always communicate with language that I can understand. But he's very specific about what he wants when he sees it, and he can identify that. Some directors will do 30 or 40 takes because they don't know what they want. We did between two and five - sometimes one.

Q: What was the most challenging aspect of the movie for you?

A: One thing was the nudity. I had never done it before, onstage or in Dune, so that was something I had to sort of sit, think about, and get comfortable with. Again, that's where David was real great, because he creates a wonderful atmosphere on the set. Isabella and I worked together and it got to a place where it was okay. You take it step-by-step in rehearsal until you're comfortable with the person and with what's going on. Then they bring in a small crew - four or five people to shoot the scene. At which point I, as an actor, am unaware of what they're doing.

Q: Did you get a lot of rehearsal time?

A: Yeah, as much time as we felt we needed. That was also a wonderful thing about Fred Caruso, who produced the picture. Producers work with time and money. But he tried to be as sympathetic as he could and give David the amount of time that he needed.

Q: What was your relationship with the production side of the film? With Caruso and (studio head) Dino DeLaurentiis and the others?

A: It all comes down to a system of buffers, you know. From Dino to Fred, from Fred to David, from David to us. The better they are at buffering and protecting the actors, the better I'm going to feel working on the picture.

Q: How did you get the role?

A: It all started with Dune. While we were shooting Dune, David had a copy of the script and he let me read it. He thought I'd be great as Jeffrey. So we sort of made a little pact that we'd work on it. Then Dune opened, and we both went into sort of a tailspin.

Q: What were your opinions of Dune?

A: I had so many feelings: part of me loved the film, and part of me hated the film. I guess because you live through all of it. It's exciting to watch it happen. These are my friends on the screen. I was watching the scenes and I knew what was going on around the scenes.

Q: You really can't divorce yourself from it.

A: It's very difficult, yeah. I also thought the film was very talky, and had too much explaining, and all those things. I sort of looked at is as a "Best Of." You take the novel, and you've got a certain number of scenes. You've gotta know the novel, I think, to get much from the scenes in the picture. The gaps are pretty wide.

Q: You shot a lot more than what ended up on the screen. Lynch said something about re-editing a longer version. Do you know anything about that?

A: Yeah, he said to me that for television - NBC, CBS, whoever's gonna take it...

Q: Do a miniseries?

A: It'll probably be a two-nighter. He wants to put about a half hour in, which would make it about a four hour picture. So we'll get more stuff on the Fremen - which will help, because they disappeared from the picture. Hopefully there'll be a little more filler, you know. So the scenes will be a little bigger, and maybe they'll be closer together so people will be able to follow the story line.

Q: So people who haven't read the novel will know what's going on?

A: Maybe. Or at least get a better idea of this world that David sort of worked in conjunction with Frank Herbert to create.

Q: Herbert really liked the movie, right?

A: Yeah, Frank was a real positive guy. [Note: Frank Herbert, the author of the novel, died before the movie opened.] It was probably similar for him to watch the movie as it was for me to watch the movie. He was down there a lot. I think he really enjoyed the whole process, and he enjoyed seeing his picture put up on film. The film wasn't terrible. It wasn't an embarrassment to watch. I mean the acting was...what it was. It was very stylized. It wasn't like you look at it and go, "Oh God, that's really bad." It just didn't click somehow. It's easy to sort of rationalize that when you're involved with it. You sort of look over that and say, "I love it."

Q: Hard to be objective.

A: It is. Very difficult.

Q: Okay, let's move on. First you played a messiah in Dune. And in Blue Velvet you're just a college kid in a small town. You've gone from one extreme to another. What do you want to do next?

A: Sometimes people ask me, "What's role do you want to do next?" On film it's so difficult because every script that comes to you has got a completely different set of circumstances. On stage, I can say, "Yeah, someday I'd like to do Cyrano," you know. Or Mercutio. There are roles that are set there that I'd really love to do. But on film it comes down to something that's a wonderful story about people. With some good writing, relationships that are multi-layered, and characters that are interesting and develop from A to Z. And that can be set anywhere. It comes down to that type of thing as opposed to a certain character that I want to step into.

Q: Is there something specific that you're developing now?

A: Nothing specific, no. I'm just reading things and trying to find something that I would really like to do. I find those, and then I go and start the battle, you know. Meet and read and fight with all the other actors that want to do it. I've come close, but so far I haven't gotten anything solid yet. I'm hoping Blue Velvet helps. It always helps when people can see that you can do something else besides fight robots and talk in deep voices. They need a little more than just Dune.

Q: Did you have to fight for Blue Velvet or was it pretty much set for you?

A: In David's mind it was set for me. I turned it down. I said, "I can't do it" at one point, because I felt it was just...too intense, somehow. So I went away for about a month, two months. During that period of time, I think, they went out and looked for other actors. And then finally I said, "Well, no, I think I really want to do it." Then they stopped the search and I stepped in. I think in David's mind he knew I was going to do it all along. It was just a matter of me coming around.

Q: You've said Lynch has a very specific vision of what he wants. During the course of production, are you more or less aware of what the final product will be?

A: Yes and no. I was there almost every day. I shot 60-plus days, which is a lot. I was there, in Dorothy's apartment, and I saw what it looked like. The first day when we all walked in we went, "Ooooo...this is wonderful." So you get a feel somehow. You also feel the style because of the dialog. David's dialog is very stylized, I think. It's very difficult to say and make real. It's one of the challenges. But I really didn't pick up on the humor of it until I saw it with an audience at Telluride. And suddenly, I heard lines like, "We don't know much but bits and pieces." People laugh, and I thought, God, that's funny. You never realize at the time the humor of the stuff. It's like a big puzzle. You take a piece - the scene you're working on today - and you look at it, and you've got no idea of what the whole is going to be. Shooting a movie is like taking a piece and putting four or five together at one time and then leaving it.

Q: You don't film it chronologically.

A: No. Usually within a scene you try and shoot it at one point. So I really didn't have a strong idea of what David was going finish. I think he does while he's doing it. When he sees what he wants, it's cut, print, onto the next one.

Q: How would you describe Blue Velvet to someone who hasn't seen it before?

A: That would be difficult. I'm not even sure what it is, you know. From my point of view, as the character, I look at it as a journey - as a young man who comes home and...goes through some experiences. That's just about it, you know. It's such a mind-boggling film for me. I've read some reviews that have come out already - John Powers in the L.A. Weekly and David Thompson in California magazine - and they've got a couple of pages, devoted to this thing. I sort of read it and go, "Yeah...that sounds pretty good." They take a stab and write all this stuff and I'm just boggled by the things they pull out of this picture. So I yield to them.

Q: When you saw Blue Velvet at the film festival, what was the audience reaction like?

A: They went crazy. I was amazed. I mean, when we made this picture, we had no idea how it was going to be responded to. I thought it was weird. I thought, who knows, either it's going to be universally panned or it's going to be looked at as this new, brilliant picture. Which is kind of fun, in a way. It's like with Dune: you do your work, you come out, and the critics - they knock it aside. So you come back and you another one, and the critics - they love it. It's a funny game...