The actor Kyle MacLachlan readily acknowledges the immense impact that the late director David Lynch had on his life and career. After making his on-screen debut starring in Lynch's sci-fi epic Dune (1984), Kyle expected superstardom — only to see the movie flop commercially. However, the connection he forged with Lynch led to a lifelong friendship and a filmography inhabiting the director's unforgettable and mysterious worlds. I look back at my time on set with Kyle as the iconic Dale Cooper on Twin Peaks, and we dissect our characters in the 2017 sequel series. Plus, we learn how Kyle’s Pacific Northwest roots led him to become a winemaker, and why he started a podcast to learn from 20-somethings. As I feel at any opportunity for us to connect, I’m reminded why perhaps David Lynch was just as lucky to find Kyle. Read Kyle’s New York Times opinion piece about David Lynch here. Fail Better is now on YouTube! Watch this episode here. Follow me on Instagram at @davidduchovny. Find more video podcasts on our YouTube channel. Stay up to date with Lemonada on X, Facebook and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia. Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our shows and get bonus content. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. For a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this and every other Lemonada show, go to lemonadamedia.com/sponsors.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
--------
1:00:47
--------
1:00:47
How Megan McArdle Became a Liberal-tarian
As a columnist for the Washington Post, Megan McArdle tackles the most fraught political topics of our time. So why did we spend so much time talking about pie? It turns out, it's all connected. We discuss how the same forces that shape our nation — especially technology — have also shaped our relationship with craft. A self-described "liberal-tarian", Megan has a unique way of articulating both sides of every argument. We trace her roots as a blogging provocateur, and how she came to take a slice out of both ends of the political spectrum to create her own nuanced flavor of discourse. Plus, we analyze her approach to writing and what she would update in her book, “The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success”. Fail Better is now on YouTube! Watch this episode here. Follow me on Instagram at @davidduchovny. Find more video podcasts on our YouTube channel. Stay up to date with Lemonada on X, Facebook and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia. Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our shows and get bonus content. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. For a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this and every other Lemonada show, go to lemonadamedia.com/sponsors.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
--------
50:44
--------
50:44
Waxing Poetic with Jia Tolentino (Live at Strand)
Back in September, I sat down with powerful writer and past guest Jia Tolentino at the Strand Bookstore in New York City to discuss my first poetry collection, About Time. This book is a poetic autobiography of sorts, gathering moments and fragments from my life. In front of a hometown crowd, Jia and I explore my early inspirations, debate poems versus songs, and I even read a few of our favorite pieces. You can purchase your copy of About Time at https://www.akashicbooks.com/catalog/about-time-poems/ Fail Better is now on YouTube! Watch this episode here. Follow me on Instagram at @davidduchovny. Find more video podcasts on our YouTube channel. Stay up to date with Lemonada on X, Facebook and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia. Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our shows and get bonus content. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. For a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this and every other Lemonada show, go to lemonadamedia.com/sponsors.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
--------
46:27
--------
46:27
Failure? Success? Judd Apatow Says Give It 10 Years to Decide
Take a walk through Judd Apatow’s office, like I did, and you’ll be reminded of all the successful projects he’s helped create over the years: Anchorman, Bridesmaids, Superbad, The 40-Year-Old Virgin. I joined him there to discuss his new visual memoir, Comedy Nerd: A Lifelong Obsession in Stories and Pictures. As I learn throughout our conversation, Judd’s propulsion to create isn’t to prove that he’s one of the funniest guys in the biz; it’s to figure out if he has anything to say in the first place, to work out what’s in his head. It’s something I relate to as a writer, and it’s a big part of the new book, as he documents everything he’s collected and concocted over the years and tries to make sense of this life that he’s made. As we reflect, we also talk about our most scathing reviews, why we can’t Google ourselves, and how Judd’s documentary on our mutual friend, Garry Shandling, helped cement his subject’s legacy. Fail Better is now on YouTube! Watch this episode here. Head over to Booking.com and start your listing today. Follow me on Instagram at @davidduchovny. Find more video podcasts on our YouTube channel. Stay up to date with Lemonada on X, Facebook and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia. Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our shows and get bonus content. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. For a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this and every other Lemonada show, go to lemonadamedia.com/sponsors.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
--------
50:17
--------
50:17
Fail Again: Ben Stiller Confronts His Parents' Legacy
You might remember from way back when this podcast started that my very first guest was Ben Stiller. It was a memorable interview for lots of reasons, including that Ben talked to me about his parents, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara and the documentary about the two of them he was working on. Well, that film is about to be out in the world. It’s called Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost, and it’s streaming on Apple TV starting this Friday, October 24th. In honor of that, we’re revisiting that first episode of Fail Better, featuring my friend Ben. Hope you enjoy. Get 50% off Monarch, the all-in-one financial tool at monarch.com with code FAILBETTER. Follow me on Instagram at @davidduchovny. Find more video podcasts on our YouTube channel. Stay up to date with Lemonada on X, Facebook and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia. Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our shows and get bonus content. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. For a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this and every other Lemonada show, go to lemonadamedia.com/sponsors.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
To be human is to fail – period. And not just to fail once, but to fail a lot. As the author Samuel Beckett said: “Fail again. Fail better.” This saying means a lot to me and my family – so much so that my daughter got a tattoo of it. Why are we, and so many others, so deeply concerned by failure? And if it’s something we all do so often, why are we so afraid of it – especially those of us here in win-at-all-costs America? In this podcast, I sit down with successful, thoughtful people like Ben Stiller, Bette Midler, Sean Penn and more to talk about failure – or what they labeled “failure,” but what was really an unparalleled opportunity for growth and revelation. I even want to delve into my own hardest moments, when I wrestled with setbacks, shame, and fear. We’ll still fail again. And again. But maybe if we fail better, we’ll feel better -- and maybe if we can all laugh together in failure, that's a start.