Kyle MacLachlan, one of David Lynch’s closest collaborators, has shared a lengthy tribute to the late filmmaker. “Forty-two years ago, for reasons beyond my comprehension, David Lynch plucked me out of obscurity to star in his first and last big budget movie,” MacLachlan wrote, referring to Lynch’s ill-fated 1984 movie, Dune. “I owe my entire career, and life really, to his vision.” Find the full statement below.

After playing Paul Atreides in Dune, MacLachlan went on to star in Lynch’s Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. “Our friendship blossomed on Blue Velvet and then Twin Peaks and I always found him to be the most authentically alive person I’d ever met,” MacLachlan recalled.

Although MacLachlan worked with Lynch just once more (in the third season of Twin Peaks), he’s still considered one of the filmmaker’s greatest muses. David Foster Wallace even invoked the director and the actor’s closeness in Infinite Jest: “He used Cosgrove Watt in almost every project for eighteen months. Watt for a time was to Himself as DeNiro [sic] was to Scorsese, McLachlin [sic] to Lynch, Allen to Allen.”

David Lynch’s family announced the artist’s death today. Numerous figures, including Chrystabell, Billy Corgan, Questlove, and more, have posted statements in tribute to the late filmmaker.

Kyle MacLachlan:

Forty-two years ago, for reasons beyond my comprehension, David Lynch plucked me out of obscurity to star in his first and last big budget movie. He clearly saw something in me that even I didn’t recognize. I owe my entire career, and life really, to his vision.

What I saw in him was an enigmatic and intuitive man with a creative ocean bursting forth inside of him. He was in touch with something the rest of us wish we could get to.

Our friendship blossomed on Blue Velvet and then Twin Peaks and I always found him to be the most authentically alive person I’d ever met.

David was in tune with the universe and his own imagination on a level that seemed to be the best version of human. He was not interested in answers because he understood that questions are the drive that make us who we are. They are our breath.

While the world has lost a remarkable artist, I’ve lost a dear friend who imagined a future for me and allowed me to travel in worlds I could never have conceived on my own.

I can see him now, standing up to greet me in his backyard, with a warm smile and big hug and that Great Plains honk of a voice. We’d talk coffee, the joy of the unexpected, the beauty of the world, and laugh.

His love for me and mine for him came out of the cosmic fate of two people who saw the best things about themselves in each other.

I will miss him more than the limits of my language can tell and my heart can bear. My world is that much fuller because I knew him and that much emptier now that he’s gone.

David, I remain forever changed, and forever your Kale. Thank you for everything.