Best Of: Kyle MacLachlan / Inside the ‘romance scam’

October 3, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

Inside the David Lynch Partnership and the Billion-Dollar Romance Scam

This episode of Fresh Air weaves together two distinct conversations: actor Kyle MacLachlan reflecting on his decades-long creative partnership with David Lynch, and Wired senior writer Andy Greenberg describing a cybercrime operation in Southeast Asia that traps computer engineers into defrauding victims of billions of dollars. What connects them is the theme of hidden worlds — the dark, dreamlike territories Lynch asked MacLachlan to explore, and the real-world criminal underworld where thousands of enslaved workers run romance scams from fortified compounds.

MacLachlan as Lynch's "Submersible"

MacLachlan's new memoir, Fictional Selves, takes its title from the gap between who people think he is based on his roles and who he actually is. The book became an elegy when Lynch died while MacLachlan was writing it. MacLachlan describes Lynch's death as a "significant loss" that allowed him to revisit their relationship and articulate what he learned from it.

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What you'll learn

1 (00:04) **Episode Overview** - Terry Gross previews the two main segments: an interview with Kyle MacLachlan about his memoir and a story about a cybercrime operation from Wired's Andy Greenberg.
2 (02:58) **Kyle MacLachlan on David Lynch's Influence** - MacLachlan describes how Lynch directed him in the iconic opening monologue of *Twin Peaks*.
3 (07:19) **Navigating Lynch's Death While Writing the Memoir** - MacLachlan discusses how Lynch's sudden death during the writing of *Fictional Selves* changed the book's tone.
4 (08:45) **The Dark Times: Lynch Leaving Twin Peaks** - MacLachlan recounts a period of struggle during the second season of *Twin Peaks* when Lynch left the series.
5 (11:35) **Acting as Lynch's "Submersible"** - MacLachlan describes how he felt his role was to explore Lynch's dark worlds while maintaining a tether to innocence.
6 (14:46) **Acting Opposite Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet** - MacLachlan reveals he felt genuine fear acting opposite Hopper's terrifying character, Frank Booth.
7 (17:46) **Permission from His Father's Career Change** - MacLachlan explains how his father leaving a law career for a happier life as a stockbroker gave him permission to pursue acting.

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Show Notes

Kyle MacLachlan was just 23 when he auditioned for Lynch's adaptation of Dune. The two would go on to work together on the cult classics Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks. “The worlds that [Lynch] creates are real in his mind — they exist,” he tells Terry Gross. MacLachlan's new memoir is Fictional Selves.

Also, Wired reporter Andy Greenberg describes the story he broke about a cyber crime operation in Southeast Asia that entraps computer engineers into defrauding victims around the world of billions of dollars.

And book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Min Jin Lee’s new novel, American Hagwon.

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