It’s been more than 30 years since Kyle MacLachlan and Laura Dern broke up, but the two have since grown close.
Speaking on the “Dinner’s on Me With Jesse Tyler Ferguson” podcast, MacLachlan, 65, looked back on the end of his relationship with Dern, 57, saying he handled their breakup “poorly.”
“She’s been very kind, she’s been very understanding,” he said on the episode, released Tuesday, March 19. “I did not end that very well. We were both kids. I felt bad about it.”
MacLachlan and Dern dated from 1985 to 1989, first getting together while shooting the 1986 thriller Blue Velvet. He didn’t reveal exactly what he handled poorly, but the two have certainly mended fences.
“We’re great friends now, and I just adore her,” he added. “She’s got the best sense of humor. She is smart, beautiful, empathic … but also has this little bit of a bawdy side to her humor, which I think she gets from her mom and her dad, certainly. So she’s a wonderful mix of qualities that I just think are spectacular. I love her.”
Ferguson, 48, added that MacLachlan and Dern “had great chemistry too.”
MacLachlan agreed, adding that they work together well. They reunited onscreen in 2017 on Twin Peaks: The Return, the third season of the cult-classic TV show. MacLachlan reprised his role as FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, while Dern was cast as Diane Evans.
“When [creator David Lynch] told me that he was casting her as Diane in that, I was like, ‘That is the most brilliant thing you could have ever said to me,’” MacLachlan recalled. “I was so excited to get to work with her.”
After MacLachlan and Dern split, MacLachlan dated Twin Peaks costar Lara Flynn Boyle and model Linda Evangelista. He is now married to publicist Desiree Gruber. The couple share a son, Callum, 15.
Dern married singer Ben Harper in 2005 and the two divorced in 2013. They share son Ellery, 22, and daughter Jaya, 19.
MacLachlan and Ferguson’s conversation didn’t stop at his ex-girlfriend, however. The actor also spoke on his time working on the 1994 live-action version of The Flintstones, recounting how costar Elizabeth Taylor demanded she receive a gift every day for participating in the movie.
