
David Lynch and Kyle Lachlan.
Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty ImagesKyle MacLachlan pays tribute David Lynch after his death at 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 even I didn’t recognize. To his vision I owe my entire career, indeed my life,” MacLachlan, 65, wrote via Instagram on Thursday, January 16. “What I saw in him was an enigmatic and intuitive man with a creative ocean welling up within him. He was in touch with something that the rest of us would like to reach.”
MacLachlan wrote that his friendship with Lynch “bloomed” further Blue velvet and Twin Peaksdeclaring that he “always thought he was the most authentic person alive I had 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 being human. He wasn’t interested in answers because he understood that questions are the engine that makes us who we are. They are our breath,” MacLachlan wrote. “While the world has lost an extraordinary artist, I have lost a dear friend who envisioned a future for me and allowed me to travel to worlds I could never have imagined on my own.”
Along with the message, MacLachlan shared a series of photos of him and Lynch over the years.
“Now I can see him standing to greet me in his yard, with a warm smile and a big hug and that voice of the Great Plains. We would talk about coffee, the joy of the unexpected, the beauty of the world and laugh,” he wrote. “His love for me and mine for him came from 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 tongue can say and my heart can bear. My world is much fuller because I knew him, and much emptier now that he is gone. David, I remain forever changed, and forever your Kale. Thank you for everything.”
News broke Thursday that Lynch had passed away after struggle with emphysemawho was diagnosed in 2020 after a decade of smoking.
“It is with deep regret that his family, to announce the passage the man and the 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 doughnut, not the hole’. It’s a beautiful day with golden sun and blue skies all the way.”