For most television and film fanatics, Kyle MacLachlan is best known—or at least, most familiar—for his turn in David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks” as Agent Dale Cooper (and others, the longer you get into the series). Beyond that, MacLachlan has had a varied career over the decades that has led him from multiple genres and formats and, depending on the filmmaker, genres within genres. In his latest outing, he rejoins his “Hamlet” co-star Ethan Hawke and director Michael Almereyda for the unique biopic, “Tesla.”
READ MORE: ‘Tesla’: Ethan Hawke Stars In This Inventive Biopic [Sundance Review]
In “Tesla,” MacLachlan plays Thomas Edison with an engaging amount of restraint in a film that pushes narrative barriers. In our review of the film, our critic praised the actor’s performance and wrote, “Edison is played by Kyle MacLachlan, having an infectiously good time and given all of the film’s best jokes.”
We spoke to MacLachlan about his research on Edison, getting to return to working with Almereyda and Hawke, and whether or not he thinks there will be another season of “Twin Peaks.”
What first drew you into the project and what was the appeal for you to play Thomas Edison?
Well, it was a combination of things. I have a great respect for Michael Almereyda, we worked together with Ethan Hawke years ago on “Hamlet” and had such a good time together, and I really enjoyed his style and process and just the way he conducted the day to day shoots. At the same time, the idea of playing Thomas Edison was a pretty exciting thought, trying to recreate and find the man behind the legend. Michael made available all these resources, including a diary that Edison kept that he wrote in the summer of 1885 that showed a fascinating side you don’t really get to see often. So really the many shadings of the character was what appealed to me, seeing each side of him instead of just making him a cool inventor made it fun for me as an actor. Seeing and getting to work with Ethan again was another draw, particularly having worked with him not only on “Hamlet” but also even before that on a little movie called “Rich in Love,” which was our first connection, and I have never forgot how much fun it is to be in a scene with him. He’s obviously incredibly talented but so inventive and smart and willing to step outside of what’s on the page, which is something you get so lucky to share a scene with as an actor.
How was it being able to go back and reflect on working with him since you’ve worked off and on together throughout very different stages of your careers?
That’s a very interesting question because we have both been around for a while working very consistently in very different ways, but I think at a core level we don’t change that much. You mature, and speaking for myself there is a greater appreciation for getting to do what we do. With a person like Ethan, you have this rare feeling of luck where you continuously have something that happens in a scene that just lands magically and you just learn to not take that for granted. Now he will probably answer this with something humorous, but I think we both felt the same way about being excited to work in tandem as a partnership this time around instead of working around each other in a few scenes so we were both really pleased by that.
I find it so interesting that, painting with a broad brush, there is a certain framework or expectation on how a biopic is going to be told and framed, but “Tesla” breaks that format immediately. Was that something that interested you as well?
Oh yes, I was excited by it. I agree with you, sometimes the film or the story can get caught up in trying to build to or hit all the high points of a person’s life and getting there can make things a little more narrow than they otherwise would. Obviously you want to see all the inventions Tesla or Edison were involved in, but of course, there isn’t a way to effectively do that without getting interesting. So the idea that you kind of meander through this era and get introduced to these various characters like Tesla or J.P. Morgan etc. and have them bounce off of each other in real and human ways worked because we were actually making them people, and along the way you learn that they were brilliant and did extraordinary things. That very brilliance they all possess also affected them in a huge variety of ways, but we wanted to get to the core of them all and make them feel human. During an interview with Ethan we were talking about carrying genius inside of yourself, if you are gifted with something like that it comes at a price because you can’t stop it. You are always creating or dreaming and you can either embrace that, like Edison did and channel it into a very successful business, or there are people like Tesla who are thinking beyond what other people could even comprehend, but that has a toll too. You could see in his life and his day to day interactions he was incredibly awkward and incapable of having a relationship, so it became a give and take and that is something both very human and very unique.
I have to imagine when you are reading a script like this that it can be hard to imagine the final product. Is not knowing the final outcome something you find appealing?
I think anytime I enter into a filmmaking journey when it is incredibly independent with no budget that there are going to be compromises along the way and the hope is that you are going to be able to find unique or even more compelling ways to present your ideas. When I read the script the opening scene is set at an ice skating rink in central park and we meet pretty much everyone important to the story, and the way it was written was a much larger and grander presentation that could clearly never happen on our budget, but I really loved the way it turned out in the film. It became a claustrophobic introduction and told through these glances between these characters and felt very appropriate to who they were as people and yeah I really loved the way that it transformed. The seen where I talked about AC current we had some slow camera moves with objects in the foreground and I’m behind that, and that was meant to take place in a courtroom and a whole different environment that would have made it a very traditional setting, which was a set we didn’t have so it heightened it into a terrific scene where you really feel the irritation of Edison and the invasiveness of the questions thrown at him. One of the great things about Michael is that he is incredibly adept at adjusting and coming up with these on the fly ideas.
What do you think it is about “Twin Peaks” that gives it such an enduring legacy where you can have fans loving it since the original run to fans who are coming into it so far into its future and loving it like something new?
There is such a timelessness to the original. In 1989, when we filmed it, there was nothing like it on air. Nobody on David Lynch’s stature had ever returned to network television, and especially not in such an unexpected and wholly original way and I think people were shocked by it. It was everything, from the way it was filmed and the cast to the story and the music, and it was embraced immediately. Seeing it recently reminded me of how it has such a specific pace that no one does like David and almost feels like you are being drawn into this very slow film while still being a television show. So you have this hook of a story, “who killed Laura Palmer?” inhabited by this extraordinary cast of very unusual characters and we were doing unusual things and saying things that you had never seen on television before. At the center of all that way special agent Dale Cooper, who was the quirkiest of all and the most obvious yet hidden kind of character, and I just feel like we captured the moment and people were very excited about its world and what it represented. One of the very best things that David is able to do is create that environment that draws you in and makes you want to visit and imagine existing in. I see all this beautiful art and inspirations, something I try to showcase on my Instagram page with things like fan art Fridays, and I am so moved by the work that people have been motivated to create and share from this very special thing that I was a part of that it feels good to engage and spread that joy.
Do you think the interest gives it any chance of anything else happening in that world like another season?
Well, of course, there is always a possibility of another one, but everything begins and ends with David and what his plans are and I don’t have a clue as to what he’s thinking. So it’s always possible and I lean towards it being a no, but I’ve been wrong more than once so the chance is always out there.
Lastly, your career has led you all over the map in terms of mediums and genres – is there something in particular that compels you these days in regards to what roles you take?
It really varies, there is something I’m looking at right now that is a little bit outside of my usual experience that has me excited. Trying my hand at things like a half-hour sitcom on something like CBS was something that kind of thing, which had me worried about not knowing if I could do something like that. Of course, though I always love my time on the stage and really enjoyed my time doing “How I Met Your Mother” and that led to things like “Carol’s Second Act,” which I found satisfying in some ways and not in others, and it was completely different than anything I’d done. There is a feature I’m really excited about with a director I had spoken with earlier today, and it’s something that has got the creative juices flowing so I’m excited to see where that takes me.
“Tesla” is in select theaters now.