Kyle MacLachlan has opened up about his experience on the set of 1984's Dune. As reported by People, it wasn't exactly the best time. He referred to having experienced "moments of struggle".
He opened up about Dune in his memoir entitled Fictional Selves. 1984's Dune was filmed chiefly in Mexico over a period of seven months. And things weren't all sunshine and rainbows.
"The physical conditions wreak havoc with just about everyone," he recalled. "If I have to go to the bathroom, especially if I get hit with the stomach issues rampant on set, I am in trouble. The plumbing on the sound stages is... let's call it grim."
He went into even more detail—TMI, anyone? "When you feel it coming on," he explained, "you have to hail down a golf cart and speed back to the dressing room building, hopefully in time."
"Otherwise, you do battle with the toilet near the stages, where the smell is awful, flies have taken over, and the floor is littered with used scraps of newspaper." Gross.
And things weren't made better by the fact he was frequently visited by the "friendly neighborhood stomach bug", either.
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"I will lose nearly 15 lbs. in total during the seven-month shoot," he admitted. But in what is likely the most strange sense of solidarity you'll hear today, he took solace in the fact that everyone on that set was "all dealing with the same thing."
"Every morning, we find out someone new is down for the day," he added. "It just becomes part of life on set." But, strangely enough, it turns out that David Lynch, the director, didn't end up getting affected by the stomach bugs.
Luckily, though, MacLachlan got the long end of the stick in the grand scheme of things. While you might think a near-constant stomach bug and suffering in that sense are pretty darn bad—think again.
Some actors ended up sustaining "actual injuries" on set. Personally, I'd rather have a stomach waging civil war than a broken arm — but each to their own, right?
