Inside the making of Fallout, Kyle MacLachlan’s next big show
Kyle MacLachlan has been part of Dune and Sex and the City but it’s his role in one cult favourite he gets recognised for the most.
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In a career that spans 40 years of film, theatre and television, Kyle MacLachlan has had an uncanny knack in appearing in projects that go on to become pop culture phenomena.
For his very first film, he was plucked from obscurity fresh out of college to play the lead role of Paul Atreides in David Lynch’s ambitious but flawed 1984 version of Dune (shoes currently filled by Timothee Chalomet in the all-conquering remake), which tanked at the box office but has gone on to become a cult favourite.
His collaboration with Lynch continued through the ‘80s and into the ‘90s, first with the art-house film favourite Blue Velvet and then Twin Peaks, the mind-bending murder mystery that helped rewrite the rules of television.
Into the 2000s he found still more fans as the creepy mummy’s boy Trey MacDougal in Sex And The City, as well a lead role in Desperate Housewives and the boating obsessed Olympic gold-medallist, The Captain, in How I Met Your Mother.
With such a broad range of roles – to say nothing of The Doors, The Flintstones, Portlandia and Agents of SHIELD – it’s no wonder he struggles to pinpoint which character he most gets recognised for, but he does know that he’s grateful for them all.
“It’s a mixed bag really,” he says over Zoom call.
“I think Twin Peaks still leads the way but occasionally there’ll be a Sex In the City or even a Desperate Housewives – and occasionally a How I Met Your Mother fan will emerge.
“I have a great sense of gratitude for being able to be part of so many different shows that have such a strong fan base. The people that like these shows really like these shows and they’re not shy in demonstrating or expressing their enthusiasm or their love for all of the characters – the ones they like and the ones they don’t like.”
MacLachlan is set to gain a new generation of fans thanks to his role in Fallout, the big-budget TV adaptation of the much loved video game franchise, which has sold nearly 40 million copies.
The 65-year old admits he’s no gamer ¬ “I think I’m going to leave this to the younger generation” – but was a fan of the recent HBO hit The Last of Us, particularly its amazing post-Apocalyptic world-building.
Fallout is also set in a world that has been ravaged by nuclear disaster, and has been divided into the privileged few who were assigned spots in sophisticated and regimented underground bunkers known as Vaults and the rest of humanity, who have been abandoned to eke out an existence in a wild, violent and irradiated surface world, now known as the Wasteland.
When the Vault overseen by MacLachlan’s character Hank is breached by outsiders and he is kidnapped, his daughter Lucy (Ella Purnell from Yellowjackets) ventures into an outside world filled with crooks, mutants and monsters, setting up a conflict between the haves and the have-nots and some huge action set pieces.
“The thing that works especially well in Last of Us and also I think in Fallout is that the scale of the worlds we are existing in is so massive and so interesting and so different,” he says. “You actually can lay these wonderful human stories and human condition in those worlds, and actually watch people deal with issues that are very familiar … and hopefully that’s the appeal.”
MacLachlan describes Hank as “a positive, upbeat leader of this community and is a tremendous influence over his over his flock” and “a bit of an evangelist”.
And if the somewhat naive and earnest Vault-dwellers, whose mission is to rebuild the world according to their old-fashioned values when it’s safe to do so, come across as the 1 per centers of the post-Apocalyptic world, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
“It’s s a little bit of a meritocracy and you’re expected to do the right thing,” he says.
“You’re supposed to look out for other people. You’re to take care of your neighbour. I think those are really good qualities that we can all remember right now as we seemingly become more and more divisive in our world.”
With Dune flying high again thanks to Denis Villeneuve’s 2021 remake and this year’s sequel, which combined have now crossed the US$1 billion dollar mark, MacLachlan looks back on his time on the desert planet with great fondness, acknowledging that “it completely changed my life”.
Aged just 23 and with no connections in the movie business and ambitions to work in musical theatre in New York, he says he was “flying blind and flying solo” on the long-awaited adaptation of Frank Herbert’s revered sci-fi book and says his naïveté to the enormity of the project probably held him in good stead.
“Dune was a massive film and a giant experience,” he recalls.
“I think not knowing that a lot of that rested on my shoulders – I wasn’t really that aware of that believe it or not – was probably helpful. I think I probably would have had many panic attacks if I hadn’t.”
He says he thoroughly enjoyed Villeneuve’s take on the material as well as the opportunity it brought to look at it with fresh eyes four decades after his own transformative and very personal experience.
“There were some scenes that were similar of course because that’s the way they were written in the book, but I really enjoyed the ride and I enjoyed the story,” he says.
“I’m a huge fan of the books anyway … and I think they did a terrific job in telling that story.”
As to whether fans have seen the last of his coffee-chugging, cherry pie loving Agent Dale Cooper, MacLachlan says he has no idea. After the original two series of Twin Peaks in 1990-91, MacLachlan returned to the role for the 1992 movie Fire Walk With Me, and a belated third season in 2017, but he says that the decision to make more lies with enigmatic writer-director Lynch.
“David always has a surprise up his sleeves, so I don’t know if he’s thinking of things or not,” he says. “But it would be really fun to revisit the character again if it happens. And if not, maybe something else with David. I don’t know. We haven’t set anything in motion yet, but never say never.”
In the meantime, there’s his longstanding side hustle as a highly regarded winemaker and co-owner of the Washington-based Pursued By a Bear label. MacLachlan spent a few months in Brisbane a couple of years ago filming the TV series Joe Exotic and in addition to becoming a convert to the flat white and trying to master the Aussie slang, he professes to being a huge admirer of the local grape products.
“Absolutely for research purposes yes,” he confirms. “I was a big supporter of the local wine. Every night there was a different bottle that I would enjoy – but I’m a professional so it’s all right.”
Fallout streams on Amazon Prime from Thursday
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