In his sometimes rueful, often charming, and always bracingly self-aware memoir, Fictional Selves, the actor Kyle MacLachlan reflects on filmmaking (for him, it all began when he was yanked from obscurity to star in the 1984 space opera Dune); fear of failure, or, at the very least, fear of being a disappointment (it has been his constant companion); and fame (something that he never expected and tends to view more as a bug of his chosen occupation than an intrinsic feature).
“Acting is a peculiar profession,” writes MacLachlan, whose credits include the movies Blue Velvet (1986), The Doors (1991), and Showgirls (1995), and the television series Twin Peaks (1990–91), Sex and the City (2000–2), Desperate Housewives (2006–12), and Portlandia (2011–18). “You create another person who then exists outside of you, in perpetuity.... He’s not you but people mistake him for you. After all, you share a face and a body and a voice. So, this other self attaches to your actual self…. Who is that posting short videos on Instagram? Dancing on TikTok? Is it me? Or is it him?”