“It’s not David Lynch exactly”: the TV series that reminded Kyle MacLachlan of ‘Twin Peaks’
Kyle MacLachlan could make thousands of movies, appear in every single play on Broadway, and discover the cure for the common cold, and most people would still know him as Special Agent Dale Cooper. As the bewildered protagonist of David Lynch’s seminal Twin Peaks, Cooper led viewers through the director’s surreal visions on his hunt for Laura Palmer’s killer. The character proved so popular that MacLachlan has played him twice more, once in the Twin Peaks movie, Fire Walk with Me, and then again in the sequel series, The Return.
For younger viewers who missed out on the Twin Peaks phenomenon, the actor does stand a chance of being recognised as someone else. The Captain in How I Met Your Mother, Calvin Johnson in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, or, more recently, Hank MacLean in Fallout. As Overseer of Vault 33, MacLachlan plays a pivotal role in the story, as his disappearance prompts his daughter Lucy (Ella Purnell) to venture above ground and look for him.
When speaking to Collider while promoting the series, MacLachlan compared his most famous TV role to his latest project. “I just loved the fact that there was this odd humour that was wrapped around these violent episodes,” said the actor. “It’s not David Lynch exactly, but there are moments where you juxtapose these things in a Lynch world, and I said, ‘I really appreciate this.’ I think I know why they reached out to me to play this character based upon my past work, and I said, ‘This is gonna be fun.’”
“I was not familiar with the game before I was cast,” MacLachlan admitted, referring to the wildly popular RPG video games the Amazon Prime series is based on. “But I loved the world. I loved the character of Hank. He’s enigmatic, but he’s very positive, and I knew, based upon that, that there was something more that was gonna come, which indeed it does.” He said that he spoke to series director Jonah Nolan and called their chat “the greatest conversation.” Nolan’s involvement also helped MacLachlan decide to join the cast.
While Fallout is a lot more conventional than Twin Peaks, it does share similar traits. While Lynch’s fictional town isn’t post-apocalyptic, it is a blurred image of a regular settlement. Fallout is more overt in its weirdness, but it also presents a world with some familiarity but with a whole load of freaky differences. A mystery is at the heart of both shows, with MacLachlan on the opposite end of each one, and they both feature a main character who finds themselves increasingly out of their depth in a bizarre new environment.
On his Twin Peaks fame, MacLachlan acknowledged that, while the show has become legendary, he wasn’t aware of the legacy it would achieve while he was making it. “It all happens around you,” he said, but he did admit: “I knew that we were embarking on a journey in a new way. It’s David Lynch on television. You’re bringing a filmmaker to network television, so you’re bringing a filmmaker’s sensibility to a different medium.”
Fallout did boffo numbers for Prime, reaching 65 million viewers in its first 16 days on the platform. It was nominated for several Emmys, including Outstanding Drama Series. It has been renewed for a second season.
