INTERVIEW:Kyle MacLachlan is perhaps best known for ordering cups of coffee but now he has turned his hand to wine-making, with some fruitful results. But how will it wash with a slice of cherry pie? FIONA MCCANNfinds out
IT'S HARD NOT TO feel a momentary disappointment when Kyle MacLachlan declines to order coffee. After all, for many the first memory of the actor, who has been gracing screens big and small for almost three decades, is as special agent Dale Cooper in the classic David Lynch series Twin Peaks. Cooper was fond of a damn fine cup of coffee to wash down his beloved cherry pie. And while MacLachlan has been known to express less enthusiasm for cherry pie, he tells me his love of coffee is on a par with Cooper's, declining it on this occasion only because he already dosed up on some "very strong, wonderful" coffee in his hotel room that morning.
In person, MacLachlan is as affable as the detective who first endeared us to those chiselled features, and generous in conversation, into which he occasionally lets slip a “my gosh” that makes for restrained and unexpectedly countrified verbiage in a Hollywood star.
Despite the fact that Twin Peaksis now some 20 years in the past, he doesn't object to the constant Cooper comparisons. "So many people responded to the show and it's continually referenced by people who are interested in working with me . . . so I'm eternally grateful for that." He even credits the series and his connections with its creator, David Lynch, for his subsequent success in more recent television dramas such as Sex and the City, in which he played uptight Trey MacDougal, and Desperate Housewives, in which he spent four years as Orson Hodge, one-time husband of Bree Van de Kamp.
MacLachlan’s beverage of choice these days is more likely to be alcoholic – a damn fine glass of Cabernet Sauvignon to be precise, from his own wine label, Pursued by Bear, which has been releasing quality wines for three years.
Those worried that this will spell the end of MacLachlan’s onscreen appearances can rest assured. “It’s still my love and great pleasure and the thing that I guess makes me very happy,” he says of acting. Besides: “You don’t make very much money in the wine business, I’m learning.”
In fact, our meeting in Portland comes about thanks to his latest role in Portlandia,a new comedy sketch show currently being filmed in the Oregon city. "They approached me and said would I want to be a part of this, and I was flattered," he says with genuine modesty. "It's always nice when someone finds you that you respect. And Fred [Armisen, the show's creator who is also a Saturday Night Live stalwart] is so funny and clever, and I was like 'wow!'."
The opportunity to take part in a comedy show also appealed. “A sketch comedy? My name isn’t the first to pop up when you think about it, so I was interested.” It was also a timely opportunity, given that his long-running stint with Desperate Housewives had just come to an end. “It was a great gig,” he says, confessing without hubris that the series creator Marc Cherry was the one who had taken the decision to write him out. “I was disappointed in one way because I so enjoyed that family and had been there for four years, but on the other side, I was like, you know what? That’s great. I get to go back out into the world now and find something interesting.”
In 2002, MacLachlan was looking for a Cabernet Sauvignon from his home-state of Washington to serve at his wedding. This led him to established wine-maker Eric Dunham, and the two agreed to go into partnership to create a new wine. “It was really a why not for me. I’ve enjoyed wine for a long time, I’ve friends who are wine makers in Napa, my wife [Desiree Gruber, an executive producer with the series Project Runway] and I really enjoy eating out and drinking wine and pairing it with food. The last piece of the puzzle, I guess, was that that I’m from Yakima originally, and it has become a kind of a wine mecca.”
Pursued by Bear was the result, established in Walla Walla, not far from where MacLachlan grew up. The name was taken from the famous Shakespearean stage direction in The Winter's Tale: "Exit, Pursued by a bear."
“I racked my brains for something that had something to do with what I do, and I naturally gravitated towards stage references,” says MacLachlan. Having hit on the name, he tried it out on a friend with whom he was dining that night – actor Steve Martin – who gave it the seal of approval.
The 2005 vintage garnered an impressive 91 rating from the influential Wine Spectator magazine. The 2006, released last year, did equally well, and the business continues to expand, the modest output increasing from 300 to 400 cases. MacLachlan credits much of its success to Dunham. “He’s the one who knows what he’s doing, so I just always yield to him. I may say something completely pedestrian about how I think it’s tasting . . . but he’s the brains behind the operation.”
He still bases himself in New York, but Pursued by Bearbrings him back to his home state more often now. "It's a great excuse to come home and visit my dad and my brothers . . . One of my intentions in doing this was to get myself up to the northwest more frequently, especially as my father is getting older."
Although oenophiles may raise an eyebrow at the notion of an actor becoming a wine maker, Pursued by a Bear has been warmly received by those with a nose for such things, and it’s easy to see the romantic appeal in such a move.
But MacLachlan refuses to romanticise either of his chosen professions, describing his work as essentially “the process of selling”. “I sell myself in the acting world and promote myself,” he says. “Now I’m just selling something that’s an extension of myself, the wine. I realised very early on that selling is really what we do as people . . . I never really thought of myself as a salesman. I was always ‘no, no no, I’m an artist’.” He shakes his head at his own delusion. “But in fact, no. I’m also a salesman.” Given the number of memorable characters he has created over his career, not to mention a wine described in Wine Spectator as “velvety, generous and open-textured”, he’s clearly a damn fine salesman at that.
