He gifted Sedgwick with Macon and Louie to celebrate the couple’s 32nd wedding anniversary, and he regularly serenades the animals with his guitar (which you can watch on social media). “They’re doing great!” he notes, adding that the pair reside on the couple’s farm in rural Connecticut along with two additional goats, two pigs, two alpacas and three miniature horses. “It’s off-brand because I’m a city kid. But I’m an animal person,” Bacon says. “I find them calming as I get older.” Bacon is 64, by the way. And though he doesn’t look it in his boyish jeans, plaid button-down and boots on this summer afternoon, that age is the proud marker of a versatile and well-respected career that spans more than 40 years—and more than 100 film and TV roles. He’s done it all, from teen comedy (National Lampoon’s Animal House) and campy horror (Friday the 13th, Tremors) to pedigreed smash dramas (A Few Good Men, Apollo 13) and comic book action (X-Men: First Class). No wonder Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, the iconic game that challenges players to connect the star with other celebrities—using the fewest collaborative projects as possible—was created in his honor. Bacon is currently in his third season of the gritty crime-drama series City on a Hill (premiering July 31 on Showtime). He plays Jackie Rohr, a corrupt former FBI agent who’s not above cutting corners—or drinking, doing drugs and cheating on his wife (Jill Hennessy). Last seen throwing his badge into Boston Harbor, Jackie now works in private security for his shady former boss (Corbin Bernsen of Psych and Major League fame) and his family. “My character comes up against very disturbing things that test his moral compass,” says Bacon, who’s also an executive producer of the series. Jackie is a dyed-in-the-wool Boston guy; Bacon is all New York City, having moved there from his native Philadelphia as a teenager. He and Sedgwick (who starred in the TNT series The Closer), 56, raised their family on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Their son, Travis, 33, is a touring rocker; daughter Sosie, 30, is an actress, recently seen in the HBO hit Mare of Easttown. Francisco Roman/SHOWTIME Ever busy and always looking forward, Bacon also recently released new music with his older brother, Michael (they record and perform as the Bacon Brothers), and has four new films in the pipeline. On a late afternoon in New York City, he talks to Parade about his wide-ranging career, his longtime marriage, his kids and the movies he hoped would be his big breaks…but weren’t. Are you the kind of actor who likes to revisit his career? No. The only time I look back is when I do interviews! I don’t have a rearview mirror. I don’t go back and watch my movies. I don’t collect memorabilia and don’t have any news clippings. Do you at least take something from the set? I think I have a need to let a character go. A lot of people will keep their wardrobe, but I don’t, because it’s not me; it belongs to this “other man.” What do you like about City on a Hill and Jackie Rohr? Is it fun to play a guy so morally compromised? When you first become an actor, you start to judge your roles based on the number of words you have. After a while, you know that’s not really it. I did quite a few things in a row where I was trying to challenge myself with little dialogue. With Jackie, here’s a voice that I heard right away. People think that because a character’s a bad guy, it’s more fun. I don’t believe that. What makes it fun is complexity, showing up and doing something that I haven’t done. It’s all about walking in someone else’s shoes. Which good-guy characters have you liked portraying? Well, even though he was on the other side of the hero in terms of the trial, I think the character [prosecutor Jack Ross] in A Few Good Men was a good man. It wasn’t a traditional good guy versus bad guy thing, but he was an interesting character. A Few Good Men was released almost 30 years ago. What do you remember about filming that epic “You can’t handle the truth!” courtroom scene with Jack Nicholson? It was amazing, and a great lesson for all actors. We had to shoot it many times to get the reactions of everyone in the room. Jack came incredibly well-prepared and did that fantastic speech multiple times, and it just got better and better. And then the camera turned around to shoot me and Tom [Cruise] and Demi [Moore]. He just kept delivering it, but once he was off-camera, the hair started to get wild, and he unbuttoned his uniform and took off the tie. He was a little bit more Jack. Let’s go back even further: Your dad was a prominent city planner, and your mom was a teacher. What did they think of you coming to New York City at age 17? I’m the youngest of six, so I’m not sure they noticed! They were so fine with it. You know, my dad was a World War II vet. He was born in 1910. By the time I was born, they were not strict with me. When I told them that I wasn’t going to college, they could not have cared less. They weren’t focused on making money. They encouraged all of us to be creative and be good humans. We’re all a little bit artistic. How excited were you to land the role of a snotty fraternity pledge in Animal House [1978] so soon into your career? So many things about that experience were new for me. I couldn’t have guessed it would be such a phenomenon, but it wasn’t the breakout for me that I thought it was going to be. I had to go back to New York and work as a waiter and a busboy. I did a soap opera [Guiding Light] and became pretty entrenched in the off-Broadway scene and did a lot of theater. To tell you the truth, [the 1982 film] Diner didn’t do anything for me either. It was a critical success, but it wasn’t a hit. It wasn’t Footloose. Speaking of Footloose [1984], that’s a movie about a city-savvy teen teaching his conservative, rural community to embrace music and dance. Did you think it seemed a little silly on paper when you first read the script? Listen, I was happy to be getting a gig. I wasn’t looking a gift horse in the mouth. But did I think it was going to be what it was? No. And the other thing is that the producers told me it was going to be a musical. I said, “This is not a musical.” It wasn’t Mary Poppins or The King and I. But they said we would be dancing to pop songs, which was a new idea at the time. When they mentioned the choreographer, I told them I didn’t need one. I said, “I really love to dance, and I’ll just dance around, and you turn on the camera.” I had no idea the extent of what the dancing would be! When did you first meet Kyra? She was 12. I was 19 and at the Cherry Lane Theatre downtown doing a play. Her mom was a theater fan and had seen me in three or four plays and told her, “You should go see this actor. He’s good and I’m going to get you tickets.” So she went to a matinee with her brother and then went to a deli. I was there getting a sandwich before the evening show and [her brother] said, “That’s the actor! Go talk to him.” She walked up and said, “Hi, you were good in that play.” We reconnected years later [doing the 1988 TV movie Lemon Sky]. Who best remembered that fateful encounter? She did. Surely, you’re constantly asked about the secret to a successful marriage. Does the answer change by the decade? It’s a hard thing to answer. If you look at the statistics, nobody stays married, and nobody has ever proved to me that it’s any harder if you’re famous just because you’re doing kissing scenes. All I know is that we still enjoy our time together. Why don’t you work together more often? We like to collaborate. Usually we’re directing each other. She’s a great filmmaker. As a producer, she’s also found material for me to direct. In terms of acting, I’ll tell you a story. I was in a small [2004] movie called The Woodsman [about a convicted child molester returning to his hometown], and she played sort of my love interest. Two weeks before filming, she had a crisis of conscience and wanted to pull out. She was like, “[Knowing we are married is] going to take people out of the film.” We were trying to escape into the roles. I told her, “You can’t do that.” She also had been cast first! [Sedgwick remained in the film.] Did you discourage your kids from entering the family business? Steve Jennings/WireImage/Getty Images I didn’t specifically sit them down and say, “Please do anything else.” For our son, that ship had sailed from the time he was a very little boy; he played and sang and breathed music. We were really surprised when our daughter wanted to be an actor. She was more academic. Then at the beginning of her sophomore year, she packed up her car and her dog and came home and said she was going to be an actor. And we were like, “OK.” Why did she change her mind? I think she must have gotten the message that from the outside, [an acting career] can glow with possibilities. But on the inside? [As her parents, we knew] there’s a real lack of stability and a lifetime of being told no. But look, [she and her brother] are definitely street-smart. Celebrity is complicated, and it’s not easy growing up in the public eye and experiencing fame secondhand. I’m extremely proud of the way they’ve navigated that. Did you all spend the height of the pandemic together? We were very lucky to have multiple places to go. I remember we were shooting City on a Hill in March [of 2020] and got a call that they were shutting down production. I went out to L.A. with my wife; my son had just moved to L.A. and hadn’t found a place yet, so he was staying with us. The three of us went into lockdown together. We actually got the show back up and running pretty quickly after that. So it seems like you’re living your best life. Does the fact that you don’t have an Oscar nomination, despite so much memorable work, rankle you at all? I’d love to get one. There’s only one reason why I haven’t, and that’s because members of the Academy haven’t seen anything I’ve done that they thought was of Oscar value. What’s great about the Oscar thing is that it opens up opportunities, because it helps certain movies get made. It’s a little harder to get parts when you don’t have “Oscar winner” or “Oscar nominee” in front of your name. Maybe it will happen someday. Maybe it won’t. Do you really still need opportunities opened for you, at this point? Of course I do! I never take my career for granted. It took me a very, very long time to learn how to say no to things because I always think my next gig will be my last. I can’t shake that feeling. I’ve seen a lot of actors just fall away for whatever reason. Life can knock you down. I hope to keep working for a long time, and I feel so lucky to still be at it.
Bacon Bits
Favorite childhood movie: House of Wax. “The [1953] one in 3D with Vincent Price.” Last binged TV series: The Staircase. “It’s with my buddy Colin [Firth]. He’s so good in it.” Book on the nightstand: “I’m not much of a reader, but the last book I found fascinating was Colorization [by Wil Haygood]. It’s an in-depth look at the history of African Americans in cinema, from Birth of a Nation to Spike Lee.” On growing up in Philadelphia: “From the time I was 6 until I was 17, I could be out playing and then just come home with my own key. My friends and I never had to be driven anywhere.” Cab vs. subway: “I almost always take the subway.” NYC bagel order: Pumpernickel with cream cheese and Nova from Barney Greengrass. Best NYC pizza: Joe’s on Sixth Avenue and Carmine Street. “It’s a popular place, but it’s a real no-frills pizza.” Dream musical collaborator: Sheryl Crow. “Maybe she’s on my mind because I just saw her [Showtime] documentary.” Recent favorite acting performance: Mahershala Ali in Swan Song (2021). “He played a clone of himself. I thought it was fantastic.” Favorite sad song: Joni Mitchell’s “River” Favorite game that’s not Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon: Backgammon Favorite getaway spot: “Does it have to be anywhere other than my house? I no longer have that vacation wanderlust.”
