The Lowdown star discusses his latest projects and reflects on his path to success as he opens up his archive to L'OFFICIEL.

Kyle MacLachlan never planned to go into acting. It wasn&rsquo;t until he saw a student-run production in college that he even considered it. &ldquo;I had never seen that quality of theater, and it blew my mind,&rdquo; he recalls. &ldquo;I was like, I want to do that.&rdquo; After graduating from the University of Washington&rsquo;s Professional Actor Training program, he got a job at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. As he began landing small roles, MacLachlan, now 66, knew that he was on to something&mdash;and so did his father.
&ldquo;When I finally stopped asking my dad for money, that signaled to him that things were going well,&rdquo; says MacLachlan, who grew up in Yakima, Washington. His mother, Catherine, was involved in community arts programs and &ldquo;nudged&rdquo; him to pursue his creative interests; his father, Kent, was &ldquo;a jock in college&rdquo;&ndash;turned-businessman who encouraged him to take Econ classes (he nearly failed). &ldquo;My dad was pretty old school, and I think the acting thing might have thrown him a bit,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;But he was always really supportive and, over time, he got more and more into it.&rdquo;

MacLachlan with his father at Eisenhower Senior High School graduation in 1977, photo courtesy of MacLachlan.

In 1984, MacLachlan was cast in David Lynch&rsquo;s Dune. Although he describes it as &ldquo;a terrible disaster that nobody liked,&rdquo; the film marked the start of a longterm collaboration with Lynch, who cast him again in his 1986 thriller Blue Velvet. &ldquo;In the conservative small town where I&rsquo;m from, that one was a bit of a scarlet letter,&rdquo; says MacLachlan. The duo&rsquo;s next project was career-defining in the best way. Portraying FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper in Lynch&rsquo;s mystery drama Twin Peaks would lead to parts in Desperate Housewives, Sex and the City, and Portlandia, the fruits of which MacLachlan shared with his family. 
&ldquo;My dad liked a nice timepiece, and I gifted him a Cartier and a Rolex later in his life, when I&rsquo;d had some success,&rdquo; he says. But it&rsquo;s a simpler watch present in his fondest father-son memories&mdash;a vintage, no-frills Hamilton style&mdash;that remains one of the most cherished pieces in MacLachlan&rsquo;s archive, 14 years after his dad&rsquo;s death. &ldquo;I remember playing with the elastic band on his wrist as a kid,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;And he&rsquo;d also wear it golfing, which was something we enjoyed together when I was growing up.&rdquo;

Roots are so important to MacLachlan that, when he launched his own wine label, <a href="https://www.pursuedbybearwine.com/">Pursued by Bear</a>, he decided to set up shop in Walla Walla, Washington. &ldquo;I thought it would be a nice excuse to go home,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;For me, wine is about conversation, sharing, and community.&rdquo; These days, MacLachlan&rsquo;s own community is ever-growing. His Instagram and TikTok accounts took off in 2024; he credits his &ldquo;young and brilliant&rdquo; social media team with encouraging him to try viral trends and interact with buzzy artists like Charli XCX and Lorde. Dubbed &ldquo;the Internet&rsquo;s dad,&rdquo; he&rsquo;s become both a Gen Z and style icon, recently starring in Balenciaga&rsquo;s Summer 2025 campaign. (It&rsquo;s not his first foray into fashion; he walked Prada&rsquo;s runway in 2022.)&nbsp;
The actor simply &ldquo;doesn&rsquo;t know what to think&rdquo; of his career renaissance. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m so flattered, but I recognize that so much of it has been driven by the shows I was in, and my work with David,&rdquo; he says. This fall, he stars in the FX series The Lowdown as a gubernatorial candidate opposite executive producer Ethan Hawke. &ldquo;Ethan and I play off of each other really well,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;To me, the greatest part of the creative process is to have fun and do something that people might not expect. Anything goes, and it&rsquo;s never serious.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Proving that point, MacLachlan just launched his own podcast, What Are We Even Doing, in which he interviews Gen Z and Millennial actors, musicians, and artists about navigating the entertainment industry. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a dialogue about how young creators view the world and what&rsquo;s important to them,&rdquo; says MacLachlan, who has the full support of his own favorite Gen Zer: his 17-year-old son, Callum. &ldquo;He just kind of rolls with it all,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think anything I&rsquo;ve done has been too cringey so far, and if it has, it&rsquo;s been appropriately cringey. I just hope he&rsquo;s at least a year away from commenting on Showgirls.&rdquo;

With a New TV Show and Podcast, Kyle MacLachlan's Career Renaissance Continues

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