Kyle MacLachlan Remembers David Lynch After Death at 78

Kyle MacLachlan pays tribute to David Lynch after his death at age 78.

“Forty-two years ago, for reasons beyond my understanding, David Lynch plucked me from obscurity to star in his first and last big budget film. He clearly saw something in me that I didn’t even recognize. My entire career, and indeed life, owes to his vision,” MacLachlan, 65, wrote via Instagram on Thursday, January 16. “What I saw in him was an enigmatic and intuitive man with a creative ocean bubbling inside him. He was in touch with something the rest of us wish we could achieve.”

MacLachlan wrote that his friendship with Lynch “blossomed” on Blue velvet a Twin Peaksalarming that he “always saw him as the most genuine person alive I’ve ever met.” (Lynch directed both the film and the TV show, while MacLachlan starred in them.)

“David was in tune with the universe and his own imagination on a level that seemed like the best version of mankind. He wasn’t interested in answers because he understood that questions are the impetus that makes us who we are. They are our breath,” MacLachlan wrote. “While the world has lost a wonderful artist, I have lost a dear friend who imagined a future for me and allowed me to travel in worlds I could never have conceived on my own.”

Alongside the message, MacLachlan shared a series of photos of him and Lynch throughout the years.

“I can see him now, standing to greet me in his backyard, with a warm smile and a big hug and that Great Plains giving me a voice. We would talk coffee, the joy of the unexpected, the beauty of the world, and laughter,” he wrote. “His love for me and my love for him came out of the cosmic fate of two people who saw the best things about themselves in each other.”

MacLachlan continued, “I will miss him more than the limits of my language can say and my heart can bear. My world is much fuller because I knew him and much emptier now that he is gone. Dafydd, I remain forever changed, and forever your Gêl. Thank you for everything.”

News broke Thursday that Lynch had died following a struggle with emphysemawhich he was diagnosed with in 2020 after decades of smoking.

“It is with great sadness that we, his family, announce the passing of the man and artist, David Lynch,” Lynch’s family wrote in a Facebook post. “We would appreciate some privacy at this time. There is a big hole in the world now that he is no longer with us. But, as he would say, ‘Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.’ It’s a beautiful day with golden sunshine and blue skies all the way.”