Kyle MacLachlan Faced A Major Career Setback After The Failure Of David Lynch's Dune
By Matthew Martinez
After "Dune," Kyle MacLachlan reunited with David Lynch for 1986's "Blue Velvet" where he played the main character Jeffrey Beaumont. The film was a critical success and went on to become one of the most celebrated of the 1980s. But outside of the indie film circuit, the actor's career failed to take off thanks in part to his earlier collaboration with the director. At the 5:37 mark on an episode of Criterion Collection Closet Picks, MacLachlan commented, "We had done 'Dune' together in '83, and 'Dune' really didn't turn out that well ... after that, I felt like I was a pariah in the business. It was just no work, no nothing." But after "Blue Velvet," he collaborated with the director once again on TV for ABC's "Twin Peaks" in 1990.
For the director of "The Elephant Man" and "Mulholland Dr.," his feelings about the film are a bit more pointed than his leading actor's recollections. In a 2020 interview with The Hollywood Reporter where he was asked about Denis Villeneuve's version of "Dune," Lynch remarked that he has no interest in the newer film. "Because it was a heartache for me," he explained. "It was a failure and I didn't have [the] final cut. I've told this story a billion times. It's not the film I wanted to make. I like certain parts of it very much — but it was a total failure for me."
