To hear him tell it, Kyle MacLachlan is not as eccentric as you might think. He plays a lot of golf. He likes to garden — or to stand, surveying his garden, with a cup of black coffee. To putter around his Manhattan apartment, where he welcomed me one recent sunny afternoon for a conversation that was notable for its genial mildness.

“I feel pretty regular — kind of boring, actually,” he told me, without actorly gloss. “Not that interesting, to be honest.”

But to know MacLachlan’s more than 40 years onscreen is to witness him as a series of weirdos — or normies in increasingly bizarre scenarios — basically from the jump. His very first role was the lead of David Lynch’s epic version of “Dune” in 1984, the beginning of a career-defining relationship with the avant-garde filmmaker that continues to disarm and enthrall fans, and MacLachlan himself.

“I put my faith in David,” MacLachlan, 67, writes in his new memoir, “Fictional Selves,” describing the audition for “Dune” and really, everything that followed. “In his simple, albeit mystical way, he gives me the confidence to get through it.”