WHAT I KNOW NOW
Kevin Bacon reveals
KKevin Bacon says the only advice he would give to his younger self is: “Take some advice!” The Philadelphia native, 62, says that when he was in his 20s, he figured he had all the answers. “I thought I had an understanding of all kinds of things. I really didn’t!” Still, he says he did at least two things right – he followed his dreams of becoming an actor, moving to New York City at 17 to pursue a career in theatre, and married the love of his life, Kyra Sedgwick, 54. The couple, who wed in 1988, are parents to daughter Sosie, 28, an actress, and son Travis, 31, a musician. Bacon, who skyrocketed to fame after playing rebel Ren in 1984’s Footloose and went on to star in hits like A Few Good Men, Apollo 13 and Mystic River, shows no signs of slowing down. “A lot of people who are my age are thinking about pumping the brakes a little. I’m really looking down the road. I don’t have
much of a rear-view mirror,” says Bacon, who stars with Amanda Seyfried in the new horror film You Should Have Left (available on demand). The past few months Bacon and Sedgwick have been quarantining at home in Connecticut, getting used to their new routine. “We cook, we clean, we decide what we’re having for the next meal, and then we cook it, clean it and decide what we’ve having for the next meal,” he says with a laugh. But there’s no-one he’d rather be stuck with. “Her partnership is invaluable,” he says. And now, despite his youthful aversion to advice, Bacon has plenty of lessons to share about marriage, family and fame.
Try to make a living doing what you love. When I was a little boy, I remember walking into a room and having this desire for people to look at me. I always wanted to be a performer. I still absolutely adore the time between “action” and “cut”. There’s nothing that I don’t love about acting. When I get a chance to walk onto a set and put on another man’s clothes and use another man’s voice, body, hair and walk in another man’s shoes, I just relish that. I feel so much gratitude for the fact that I make a living as a professional pretender. One of the great things about being an actor is that as you grow older, there are still parts. You can play an older person, and that’s fantastic. It’s a hell of a good gig. The fact that anybody still gives me a chance is something that I never take for granted.
Find a partner who always has your back. Kyra and I believe in each other as actors, as directors and as talent. She’s never been anything other than supportive of me. She doesn’t have a competitive bone in her body when it comes to me. She takes my successes as hers. I’m the same way. The only downside of that is that our failures also hit us pretty hard. You have to remember to be there as a support system for the other person and not wallow too much in your own sauce.
As a parent, you’re bound to make some mistakes …
One thing Kyra and I always talked about, and the one thing that I always knew would be hard, is that even though we are trying to be the best parents possible, we always had this understanding that at some point we were going to screw up. Part of being a parent is to make mistakes. And you either say, “Well, we could’ve done this better.” Or you can just say, “Next time we’ll do better.”
… But children can eventually be the best teachers.
I talk to my kids a lot about what’s happening in the world right now. Both of them have been really active in the protests and have very strong ideas and ideals about the world and about social justice. When your kids grow, you get to relate to each other as adults. It’s the best. It’s great with my children now because they really have a lot to teach me about the world. I think their generation in general does. They’re stepping up in a really powerful way and surprising us. Seeing my kids grow up and take their place in the world is something that I’m really proud of as a dad. In tough times, focus on what you’re thankful for.
During the coronavirus [crisis], there have definitely been things I have missed. I’d like to hug my children. That would be a start. I’d love to play some music with my band the Bacon Brothers. I’d like go to a restaurant or a movie theatre. But I’m eternally grateful that I have a roof over my head, food to eat and that my wife and I are together. We have the
luxury of having jobs that don’t require that we be outside. Our jobs don’t require that we go to work in a hospital or drive a bus or work in a grocery store. So while it presents its challenges, the challenges for me are much less than most people.
Enjoy the silence – when you can find some.
We shot You Should Have Left in Wales, and it was shockingly quiet at night. We had some dressing rooms that were little cabins adjacent to the main house we were filming in, and they were in the middle of nowhere. I decided to stay in one of them, and it was a kind of quiet that I’ve rarely experienced. But if you’re going to be the lead in a horror movie, you’re going to be spending at least 75 per cent of the movie being scared of something. I felt being isolated helped me stay in a good place for what I had to do the next day at work. I can definitely spend time by myself and am pretty good at having moments of solitude. I think it’s important to be able to be in introspective places.
You might think you know it all – but you don’t.
One of the great opportunities you have as a young person is to listen to people that have walked before you. When I was a young kid, I was such a know-it-all about all kinds of things, whether it was music or acting or politics or the world. I didn’t really want to have any kind of mentors or help. I think it’s great to be strong and confident, but at the same time, I think that there were people in my life that I probably could have gone to a little bit more to get some guidance. Make sure you never, ever let fame go to your head.
You have to be careful that you don’t start believing your own legend, and you don’t take any of that stuff too seriously, because it’s fleeting. Focus on friends who are real friends and family which is real family. Find something outside of the industry that gives you pleasure. Whether that’s yoga, knitting, God or mushrooms. I think it’s good to find something outside of our business to involve yourself in so that your entire existence isn’t around what people think of you, the parts that you’re playing or anything else. My family is that for me. I don’t know how I knew back then that having that was going to be so important. But they are my rock. •