Happy birthday, Kyle MacLachlan!

Kyle MacLachlan is 61 years old today.  While MacLachlan has appeared in a lot of different movies and tv shows and he’s also played a lot of different characters, he will probably always be best known for playing FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper on Twin Peaks.  MacLachlan, with his combination of earnestness and darkness, was the prefect choice to play Cooper and it’s impossible to imagine Twin Peaks without him.

Of course, MacLachlan didn’t just play Dale Cooper during the third season of Twin Peaks.  He also played Cooper’s evil Doppelganger and, for the majority of Twin Peaks: The Return, he played Dougie.  Dougie could barely speak and usually had no idea what was happening around him but he still thrived in Las Vegas.  MacLachlan’s performance as Dougie was both funny and poignant.  At the same time, I do think that every fan of Twin Peaks breathed a sigh of relief when Cooper finally woke up from that coma, stopped acting like Dougie, and started acting like himself.

Today’s scene that I love comes from Part 16 of Twin Peaks: The Return.  In this David Lynch-directed scene, Cooper — who has only recently reclaimed his identity — says goodbye to Dougie’s wife and son.  Like so much of Twin Peaks; The Return, this is a scene that could be unbelievably mawkish in the hands of another actor.  However, Kyle MacLachlan plays the scene with such sincerity that it’s actually very touching.

In honor of Kyle MacLachlan’s birthday, enjoy today’s scene that I love: