Kyle MacLachlan Is Coming to Miami Over Thanksgiving to Talk About His Life

Kyle MacLachlan has spent four decades playing characters who exist slightly outside the normal register of human experience — the idealistic heir in Dune, the FBI agent who orders cherry pie and talks to a tape recorder in Twin Peaks, the buttoned-up husband in Sex and the City, the mayor in Portlandia. What connects them is a quality that is hard to name but immediately recognizable: a kind of earnest strangeness, a willingness to commit completely to whatever world he has been dropped into.

On Friday, November 27 at 7:00 PM, MacLachlan comes to the Bill Cosford Cinema at the University of Miami for a 90-minute conversation about his memoir, Fictional Selves — a book about the characters who made him, and the life built around playing them. The conversation is moderated by Rene Rodriguez, Director of the Bill Cosford Cinema. The event is presented with Books & Books, and every ticket includes a copy of the book.

MacLachlan broke through in 1984 with David Lynch's Dune, playing Paul Atreides in a film that divided critics and built a cult. Two years later, Lynch cast him again in Blue Velvet — a film that did not divide anyone, because it was clearly one of the most unsettling and original American movies ever made. MacLachlan played Jeffrey Beaumont, the young man who finds a severed ear in a field and follows it into darkness. It is still one of the defining performances of the decade.

Then came Twin Peaks. Special Agent Dale Cooper — obsessive, methodical, genuinely delighted by a good cup of coffee and a slice of pie — became one of television's most beloved characters. MacLachlan played him across the original series, the 1992 film Fire Walk with Me, and the 2017 revival Twin Peaks: The Return, which is widely considered one of the greatest things ever made for television. He received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for the role.

He found a severed ear in a field in Blue Velvet. He ordered cherry pie in Twin Peaks. He is coming to Miami over Thanksgiving.

Beyond Lynch, MacLachlan's range is genuinely surprising. He played Trey MacDougal in Sex and the City — Charlotte's emotionally unavailable first husband — with a comic precision that made the character both infuriating and sympathetic. He voiced Elijah Van Dahl in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. He played the mayor of Portland in Portlandia for years. He has been in Desperate Housewives, How I Met Your Mother, and Fallout. He also makes wine in Washington State under the label Pursued by Bear, which is exactly the kind of thing Dale Cooper would do.

Fictional Selves is MacLachlan's memoir — a book about the characters he has inhabited and what they have taught him about himself. It is the kind of project that only makes sense for an actor who has spent his career playing people who are not quite of this world, and who has clearly thought hard about what that means. The conversation at the Bill Cosford Cinema will cover the book, the career, and whatever else 90 minutes allows.

Fictional Selves: An Evening with Kyle MacLachlan takes place on Friday, November 27 at 7:00 PM at the Bill Cosford Cinema, University of Miami, Coral Gables. The conversation runs 90 minutes and is moderated by Rene Rodriguez, Director of the Bill Cosford Cinema. Presented with Books & Books. Ticket price includes a copy of the book. Book tickets at miamifilmfestival.com.