‘Sex and the City’ Star Kyle MacLachlan Breaks His Silence on Trey’s Exit—And the Viral Comeback He’s Having at 66

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Kyle MacLachlan has been living rent-free in our brains for decades—as Trey MacDougal on Sex and the City, Orson Hodge on Desperate Housewives, Special Agent Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks, and now, somehow, TikTok’s unofficial “internet dad.”It’s a career that spans eras and audiences, which makes his latest sit-down especially fun.

On Not Skinny But Not Fat, the 66-year-old actor joins host Amanda Hirsch to talk about his surprise social media glow-up and his Gen Z-coded podcast What Are We Even Doing? During their convo, MacLachlan reflects on the characters that defined his career, the stories he’s never fully told until now, and the internet era that’s introduced him to an entirely new generation.

Below are highlights from their discussion—adapted into a Q&A format.

You played Trey MacDougal on ‘Sex and the City’—how did that role even happen?

“Well, it was a surprise. They reached out, Michael Patrick King and Jenny Bicks. I met with them and I was in a point in my career when I was looking for—I’d been playing kind of the offbeat, eccentric, unusual. You think of movies like Blue Velvet and shows like Twin Peaks. And so I was playing these eccentric characters and I said I really would like to play someone who’s a little more middle of the road, mainstream, more recognizable as a leading man…

…And the offer came in to work on the show to play opposite Kristen Davis, of course, and he was Upper East Side and a heart surgeon and athletic and played tennis. And I was like in my mind, ‘Oh wow, this is what we’ve been talking about. I mean, it’s Upper East Side, but that’s me, you know, that makes sense, that makes sense. I’m athletic. Maybe there’ll be some scene where we’ll shoot some stuff in the park, throwing the football around,’ you know…

…Then I went to meet them and they were like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, all of that, and of course he’s impotent and he’s got a very close relationship with his mother.’ And I was like, ‘Damn’… So I was like, ‘Okay.’ It was such a great show, the writing was so good, and I was like, ‘I’m in.’”

What did you think about Trey’s exit—the cardboard baby announcement?

“I was like, ‘I don’t really understand.’ I honestly was like, ‘What?’ You know I said, ‘Is it funny?’…they said, ‘Oh no, it’s hilarious.’ I was like, ‘Okay.’ I felt it was very disingenuous of him, you know, and I thought but I could also see that he was trying to do something that he thought was funny. So he sort of lost the plot a little bit…

…There were other times that I sort of put my foot down on some things. I was like, ‘This is no.’ And they were like, ‘Okay.’ The cardboard baby thing, it wasn’t that I didn’t want to do it. I just said, ‘I need to understand where it’s coming from.’ And they kind of explained it and I said, ‘I don’t necessarily agree, but I get it.’ And I also realized they got to move her on to the next story, you know.”

Were you asked back for ‘And Just Like That’?

“Yeah. I spoke about it a little bit with Kristen and I said, you know, they had an idea and I thought it was not terrible. It’s not worthy really of the relationship that we had established and what we’d gone through. So I said, I’d love to, but can we—let’s have a little more to it, you know, if we’re going to revisit the two of them. And they were like, ‘No, we really see it this way.’ I was like, ‘Okay.’”

Any regrets there?

“No. I have such fond memories of the original. I mean, it was really special. And honestly, when you get a script, each episode you get a script, you open it with some trepidation because you don’t know—am I wearing clothes in this one or not going to wear clothes? Am I having an emotional breakdown? I don’t know what’s coming—but the writing was always great.”

Then you went to ‘Desperate Housewives’ for six seasons—were you in the middle of all that on-set drama?

“No, first of all I’m oblivious by nature…I come in, I work with Marcia, we do our stuff, I go home. As I’m going home, Doug’s coming in or Jamie’s coming in…it’s a little bit like you clock in, you clock out.”

@kyle_maclachlan #duet with @💕 #iluvbreevandekamp ♬ original sound – 💕

You’ve been married for 23 years in Hollywood—how did you meet?

“I married the most amazing person in the world, [Desiree Gruber’s] incredible…We met at a chiropractor’s office. So, I say if I hadn’t injured my back—I have bad discs, multiple bad discs—and if I hadn’t been sitting there in my little traction chair sitting next to Blake Edwards, who was also in the traction room with me, and she walked past the doorway. Like how long does it take for someone to walk past a door frame, right? Like a second? And I saw her and I was like, ‘Who was that?’ And I was sitting in my little traction chair and then she walked back out again really quickly and I was like, ‘What the heck?’ And so I got out of my chair and I walked up just to say hello to her at the desk. And I was sort of shy to get any information, a way to contact her again, but I don’t know. I just was so taken with her. The next night we were at the same party together in Los Angeles and I saw her again and then I didn’t let her out of my sight.”

What was your pickup line?

“I said, ‘How’s your back?’ No, I don’t know what I said. I just said, ‘Hey, it’s me. Remember, we met in the thing, I have the bad back?’…Yeah, since then. Married 23 together—26.” 

Did you expect you’d take TikTok by storm?

“I did not, but I’m working with a wonderful team—they expected it…they’re so tapped into what’s happening on social and they also communicate to me these different ideas in such a lovely way and I’m kind of up for anything. I’m letting the freak flag fly a little bit and I’m getting more comfortable with the idea. I’m basically a silly person at heart. Monty Python is right in my wheelhouse, so I’m up for just doing unusual things.”

What made you want to get online? 

“I think it was a combination of things—recognizing the creative side of things, starting really with Twitter back in the day when you had a limitation on what you could say…I love the idea that you had to create something within a confined space, so that was the start. And then I just enjoy—I love posting. It’s really fun to share but it went up a few notches right around the time when I did the podcast Warnham Town with Josh Davis…we started doing just kind of some funny images and situations and the internet was like, ‘What is this? We like this.’ And so I said, ‘We should just keep going with this.’

Do you feel like you’re tapped in now?

“They bring the trends and I pay attention, but I feel like you never really know what’s happening, which is kind of great. You kind of have to just feel a vibration and then go with it. And it’s always got my crazy stamp of weirdness on it. And so you just do it and then you just kind of hope that you’ve been entertaining, and that people enjoy it.”

You have a podcast where you interview Gen Zers and young millennials—what have you learned?

“I think the expectation is that they are slackers, they don’t work, and that’s not the case at all. I think they’re more comfortable with chaos. And I think they can ride that river better, certainly better than I could at that age…

…Everyone I’ve spoken with, Kai Gerber, Caleb Peron, Benny Skinner…it’s the work ethic. Doing what I do now with [social media], it takes a lot of work, a lot of time, you know, there’s a lot of prep that goes into what we do, and i’m like, this is a job to have that internet presence like that and do social and really present yourself consistently, authentically. And the other thing that’s interesting is that, that is only a part of who they are and what they want to do. There are other worlds that they want to take on…

…I have a 17-year-old son and he’s living in a completely different world than my world and I’m interested in it. I don’t want to intrude, but I’m curious. More curious, I think, than my parents were about my generation. And I said, I’m not going to do that. I’m definitely going to look back and see what is happening.”

What does your son think about all of this? 

“He tolerates me…he’s actually pretty cool. I think he gets that I enjoy this, and I’m not too cringy to him. Yeah, he’s very tolerant.”

For the rest of their conversation, tune into Not Skinny But Not Fat, streaming now wherever you get your podcasts.

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