Although they lost almost all their savings in Bernie Madoff’s multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, the marriage of Kevin Bacon, 68, and Kyra Sedgwick, 61, who have been together for 38 years, survived with their New York apartment and their farm in Connecticut intact. It was there that the pandemic lockdown found them, and there that they hatched a film together, with the help of their two children, who came from the West Coast: Travis, a composer drafted into acting by the demands of the script, and Sosie, who has already established herself as a film and television actress.
The Bacons enlisted a screenwriter to shape their ideas, and the result was Family Movie, an ode to horror movies and a tribute to the people who make films without thinking about money and without letting failure stop them. The Smiths of this delirious comedy are a dark mirror image of the Bacons. But Kevin Bacon is a global star, whose fame extends far beyond even his extensive body of work.
The best evidence of this is his reception at the Sitges Film Festival, where Family Movie had its European premiere on Saturday. Bacon and Sedgwick are treated like gods. In this tribute to the world of filmmaking, Bacon plays a director of Z-movies, ignored by film festivals and vilified by critics, shooting it in his own home, in the hope that it will at least be shown at a festival.
Sedgwick plays his wife, his star and his muse, a woman with a tendency to resolve even the most trivial disagreement through murder. Their children play the protagonist’s children as well: twenty-somethings fed up with their father’s string of failures and eager to strike out on their own.
Bacon made peace with being Kevin Bacon decades ago. He fled Hollywood when Footloose became a box-office phenomenon; for years he disowned Tremors; and he also struggled to come to terms with becoming a pop-culture icon thanks to the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” theory, later turned into a game, which posits that anyone in Hollywood can be linked to Bacon through a chain of no more than six shared film credits.
In that time, he has also learned not to be swayed by other people’s opinions, a sentiment echoed by a line in the film. “I never read reviews of my own work, although I do read reviews of other movies,” he says with a laugh. “In reality, it’s very hard to escape them because of the algorithm.” A sign of the times.
Bacon had directed his wife several times before, and Sedgwick — who was also at Sitges as part of the team behind the new series Carrie, having directed an episode — had likewise directed her husband. But Family Movie takes their collaboration a step further.
“I came up with it when the pandemic started,” says Bacon. “What if we never went back to working away from home? Would we be capable of making a film at home? And it’s also a film about how a film is made and a love letter to horror cinema. We accepted that we would make it for very little money, with no great financial ambitions, and that we wouldn’t take ourselves seriously. We’re professional impostors. And here we are.”
In person, Sedgwick bursts into laughter at the slightest opportunity. Her husband is more reserved. Cheerful and courteous, and as lean as ever, he only turns serious when discussing the project’s one red line: the couple fought hard to secure a traditional theatrical release before the film moves to streaming platforms.
“It’s essential,” says Bacon. “I believe the experience of being with other people and watching a film in a theater is something that can’t be replicated at home. Like everyone, I’m grateful to have streaming at home. But I still make films for theaters, to be shared with other people.”
He continues: “Let me tell you an anecdote. I was on tour with the band [he still plays in The Bacon Brothers], somewhere in the South, and I went to see the new The Naked Gun movie. It was 10:00 a.m. and I was alone in the auditorium. Another person came in and sat nearby. It was a woman. We shared the viewing. I mean, I heard her laugh at some parts, and she heard me at others. And that improved the experience. That’s the greatness of theaters: in the dark you are silent, and you listen. You forget your phone, you share an experience.”
The artistic drive of an 18-year-old
Even if the protagonist of his horror comedy is a talentless failure, Bacon and his character share two passions: a love of family and a love of cinema.
“I’m still fighting for it,” says Bacon. “I’m still 100% focused on improving, transcending, and doing something impactful; feeling the same passion I did at the start. I have the same hunger I had when I was 18. I don’t know what to call it, but it’s what drives me.”
And that is why, in recent years, he has focused on smaller films, on projects that genuinely appeal to him. He has even embraced television, a format he used to look down on until Sedgwick’s success with The Closer.
Bacon has since added series such as I Love Dick, The Following and City on a Hill to a filmography that began with Animal House and includes standout titles such as Diner, JFK, Apollo 13, A Few Good Men, The River Wild, The Air Up There, Sleepers, Wild Things, Murder in the First, Hollow Man, The Woodsman and, of course, Mystic River, directed by Clint Eastwood.
“It was one of my best professional experiences,” he says. “I still carry many of his lessons. I had worked with many directors before, but he showed me calm, clarity, an absence of drama around the filming process... I still love that kind of silence, of defending concentration and putting the work first so you don’t make crap. From him I learned to know when you already have what you want in a take, and sometimes it’s the first one. There’s no need to do it again just to appear tough. Clint was a master of simplicity and calm.”
Unlike many actor couples, Bacon and Sedgwick do talk about work at home.
The filmmaker explains: “We’ve always prioritized family and friendships. Fame and success have not mattered to us, and we haven’t gone crazy over money. However, if Kyra and I never shared conversations about our profession, what would we talk or argue about? The kids? We share a passion: acting. That said, Travis and Sosie have never been forced to watch our films. Travis even prides himself on not having seen many of my movies.”
Sedgwick recalls seeing Bacon on stage in New York when he was 19 and she was 12. “After the play I ran into him at a café and told him he was a great actor. He replied kindly but nothing more... He was very handsome and a bit of a charmer.”
“How so?” asks Bacon.
“Well, the charm came later, when we met working on Lemon Sky [1988]. And you, by the way, what did you think of me on that shoot?”
Bacon smiles and lowers his eyes: “It was love at first sight.”
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