Kevin Bacon Interview, Death Sentence

At Comic Con we had a chance to sit down with Kevin Bacon and talk about his much anticipated upcoming film Death Sentence. I am a huge fan of Kevin Bacon and an even bigger fan of revenge thrillers. In Death Sentence Nick Hume (Kevin Bacon) is a mild-mannered executive with a perfect life, until one gruesome night he witnesses something that changes him forever. Transformed by grief, Hume eventually comes to the disturbing conclusion that no length is too great when protecting his family. Here is what Kevin Bacon told us about Death Sentence:

What was the particular challenge for you in taking on this role?

Kevin Bacon: Well, actors really like transitions. You like to take a character from Point A to Point B, and he starts out as the nerdy suburban run of the mill kind of guy, nothing really extraordinary about him and has to transform in the course of the film into someone who is able to take another man’s life and quite a few, at that, quite a few men’s lives. And it’s a physical transformation as well as an emotional one.

You look at some scripts and you go, "Well, it’s going to be emotionally taxing.” And you look at some scripts and you go, "Well, it’ll probably be physically very difficult to get through.” And this is a movie that had both. There’s about five minutes in the movie where I’m happy, and—

In the beginning.

Kevin Bacon: Yeah, at the very beginning, and then from that point on it’s various levels of fear and anguish and sorrow and hatred and physical violence. So that’s the challenge.

It’s fun to watch even though it’s not something any of us would wish on anyone in real life. Is it fun to play?

Kevin Bacon: I think that—I like to act, so things that are deep and give me a lot to play are fun in terms of that. But I wouldn’t say that it’s like something like doing a comedy where you go look, work and everybody’s laughing and it’s a bug yuck fest  on the set. Now, that being said, in the last session of the film, which has a lot of gunplay and a lot of cars and fights and stuff like that—that stuff is really fun. It’s fun because it’s challenging to see how we’re going to [squib] things and rig things and what we’re going to do in terms of the guns. And James Wan is incredible in terms of his placement of camera. I was always amazed to see what kind of rigs he was going to do.

One of the things I really am very proud about in terms of the film, I’m proud of James’ work and the stunt team, the special effects team, is that they, this day and age, I mean, most action films are really driven by a lot of CG, by a lot of digital effects, and there’s none in that sense. So everything that’s there is real, and it’s kind of—it’s kind of like in a way going back to the way films were made in the early Bronson days. And I think it’s definitely got that vibe.

Is it a throwback to Bronson’s Death Wish?

Kevin Bacon: Yeah. Death Wish was actually a novel, and it is the same novelist. This is another book that the guy wrote. I went back and looked at the first Death Wish. I didn’t make it through all of it. You know, which I knew very well as a young man, but I had not seen in a long time.

The thing that’s really different about Death Wish is that Death Wish is a movie about a guy who takes the law into his own hands and becomes a vigilante and goes after all criminals. In fact, Bronson doesn’t even go after the guys who hurt his family. He just doesn’t even focus on them. He just puts himself into situations where he knows he’s going to get mugged and turns around and smacks them in the head or shoots them or whatever.

And in Death Sentence, it’s much more of a revenge movie than a vigilante movie. True, the guy does go outside the law and makes that terrible, fatal mistake, but it’s really more about this cycle of violence that he unfortunately creates and that he is then focused on, on this one gang and seeking revenge.

Can you talk a little bit about Billy Darly, the character played by Garrett Hedlund and sort of—apparently, his situation, to some degree, kind of mirrors your own in that they, he’s also lost someone. Can you talk about that?

Kevin Bacon: Yeah. Well, It’s one of those things that helps when you want to make something in this genre a little more complex and a little bit more compelling. There’s no doubt that Billy Darly is a bad guy, but then you meet his father, who is, or actually, I’m not supposed to say that it’s the father, but you meet this guy, who ends up being his father, who is definitely not dad of the year. And he was his brother. And his reactions to that are also very emotional. So, in a strange way, you start to learn a little bit more on the personal side about who he is. He’s, in the beginning of the movie, you just think of him as just like a crazy guy, monster kind of guy. You start to learn a little bit more about his personal side and, on the flip side, you start to see me transform a little bit more into who he is, and, or to, you know, I don’t know. He says something along, you know like, "You’re swimming in my sewer now,” or something like that. And at the end of the film you look at the two of us—we were the last men standing, and it’s like the same, two sides of the same character with about 30 years difference, but still--.

Would you say that the physical demands of this film are the greatest that you’ve faced, or something like the River Wild, or is it kind of tough to talk in terms of--?

Kevin Bacon: You know what really the hardest thing physically I ever did was Hollow Man because, you know, I was invisible, but I was covered in this green suit, this green, or this or a mask glued on to my face or whatever. So I thought that it was going to be the easiest gig in the world ‘cause I was invisible. And that I would just come floating in. But in fact, it was physically demanding mostly from a—the standpoint of just claustrophobia and a lot of time in the makeup jail or, you know, all that kind of stuff.

How hard is it to shake off a character like this, somebody who’s this intent and who goes through all this gamut of emotional roller coaster?

Kevin Bacon: Well, it, what I find is that shaking it off on Friday is difficult because you know that you’re going to have to get back into it on Monday. So it affects your thoughts. It affects my dreams. I feel a strong need to get back in touch with my family and see my kids and kind of reaffirmed that they’re okay  because I’m spending all this time with feeling the opposite. And, of course, using them, which I have to use them for my own kind of sense, memory sort of this thing, connecting with my wife.

But at the end of the film, so I tend to sort of get a little bit dark probably while making a movie like this. At the end of the film, it’s pretty easy for me to say goodbye to it. I have this picture—I did a movie called, Murder in the First, which was really hard and I’d lost a whole bunch of weight and I was in shackles and had bugs crawling on me and it was a really torturous kind of character. But I got a picture of myself on a beach in Hawaii, holding my daughter, who at that point was about maybe six months or a year and I’m emaciated, my head is shaved. But you can see in my face that the guy is gone. You know that there’s no, and this is maybe two days after we finished filming. That I’m able to just put them away and kind of say goodbye once the shooting is over.

When you were choosing, and I asked James this question about what it’s like as a parent to deal with kids, and he said to ask you, in approaching a movie like this. Is it a hard place to go?

Kevin Bacon: Yeah. Definitely, definitely. I mean, that’s the worst thing you could possibly imagine is something happening to your kids or someone doing something to your kids. And so, yeah when I look at just my face in this film, there’s a tremendous amount of stress, I think, on this character. And that all has to do with putting those feelings that you have for your kids in your gut hoping that it comes out through your face.

Did that challenge draw you to the picture?

Kevin Bacon: It did. I think that—yeah, I mean, I think that I certainly felt like I could relate to that piece of it. And, as I said, I mean, I pick it up and it says, "Death Sentence,” you know, I mean, you look at it and you think about that title and you go, "Death Sentence.” And you know, you start to read it, and I’m sort of thinking, and I’ll read it, but I don’t know if it’s really like—I didn’t know if there was going to be enough from a character standpoint for me because while I really like horror and I really like action and I really like genre movies as a film goer, sometimes I feel like the actual character—they’re a little bit light on character development. They’ll just kind of say, "Well, he’s the guy,” you know, whatever. And as I started to read Death Sentence, I felt like, "Wow! you know, this is really, even if you took the action out of it, you know, this is really a compelling kind of drama. So that’s really what drew me to it.

Had you been looking for a revenge film because weren’t you supposed to do Dolan’s Cadillac? And that’s kind of another similar thing, a revenge thing.

Kevin Bacon: Yeah. Well, Dolan’s was quite some time ago, and I did, I did like that, I did like that script a lot. I wasn’t so much looking for a revenge film, but I was looking for a film where I could kick some ass. I felt like after these very emotional movies, Mystic and The Woodsman and I did this movie, Where the Truth Lies, [and just gets], you know, very kind of emotional drama. I was looking for something to, I don’t know, just to kind of get a little bit more kind of physical and to, and also, you know, while I’ve been in thriller kind of things before with Trapped and the River Wild, those were both—I was bad guys in both of them. So it’s kind of nice to not be the bad guy.

Was it important for you at this point to say,  I really would like more people to see what I’m capable of doing?

Kevin Bacon: Yeah, one for the meal and one for the reel. I mean, you don’t—I mean, it’s hard to say that but it’s always a roll of the dice about whether people are going to see it or not. There are no guarantees, even if you say, "Well, I think maybe this movie feels more commercial or less commercial.” Who knows? It’s the same thing with the small movies. Sometimes they break out and based on how much they cost, they have a tremendous upside that you don’t really expect, so. It’s—it was not so much the reason to do it.

Do you find it strange that they’re remaking Footloose?

Kevin Bacon: No. I mean, I think I’m right about this. What they’re remaking is the musical that was made from the movie.

‘Cause Hairspray was a hit

Kevin Bacon: Exactly. I think it’s the same kind of—it feels like the same kind of idea of Hairspray, you know. John Waters makes a movie, which is—is it a musical? Forget.

It’s not. His movie is not a musical.

Kevin Bacon: It’s not. Then they do a Broadway Musical of that, and then they remake the movie--. So I think it’s a similar kind of thing. So it doesn’t, it sort of feels like it’s One Degree of Separation if you will.

That’s so great. Footloose and the upcoming movie, Hotrod.

Kevin Bacon: Yeah, somebody told me that. I’ll look forward to that.

Where he’s doing the angry dance montage, and Andy Samberg actually said a lot of babies were born because of Footloose. So I’m just wondering your reaction to that?

Kevin Bacon: Well, I was very disappointed. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it—there’s a YouTube video that’s, one has gotten, I think, maybe the most hits of almost any YouTube video ever, which is called the, something like The Evolution of Dance. And it’s just a guy who just dances and they skipped Footloose, and I was heartbroken because, I mean, I really, I feel like sending this guy a letter because he went right from Saturday Night Fever, and I think, jumped to Michael Jackson doing Billy Jean, and it hurt.

 Are you a fan of Zack Efron?

Kevin Bacon: I don’t really know Zack Efron’s work, but I’m looking forward to seeing it.

You said before about putting the character away. And I’ve noticed that more than, I think, any other actor, you have more sequels to your films and ones you’re not actually in. There’s Tremors, there’s I guess, Stir of Echoes 2, etc.

Kevin Bacon: Right. What about Friday the 13^th? Of course, I was dead.

I just wonder, I mean, would that ever be something that interests you, to revisit a character later?

Kevin Bacon: Sure.

Any one in particular?

Kevin Bacon: I don’t know. The Woodsman II.

Oh yeah, Yes, the Return.

Kevin Bacon: Yeah. No, I don’t know. Yeah, I mean, it would interest me. I mean somebody asked me if, literally, if I was interested in Death Sentence because it might have a Part II. Well, first off, you know, that’s pretty presumptuous to think that something is going to have a Part II. And second off, I kind of feel like you have to take it one at a time. With the movies that you did mention, they were all straight to DVD. So I didn’t, you know, that’s why I really wasn’t involved, cause I—

I assumed it went straight to DVD

Kevin Bacon: Well, I don’t know. It’s—Well, I just didn’t seem to—it didn’t seem to be the right--. I mean, I kind of felt like if you’re going to make a Part II, Part I should be like a box office smash, which it wasn’t for any of those movies. They ended up finding a following on cable and on DVD. Stir of Echoes is a huge DVD title as was Tremors, and continues to be, but neither one of them made enough of an impact in the theatrical to really want to do another theatrical movie, so.

You’re not directing yourself again because I just saw Loverboy again the other day, right. Exquisite film.

Kevin Bacon: Thanks. I’d like to do it, yeah. They’re the script that I really like, that I keep reading and we keep talking about looking for a director. And I keep thinking, "Maybe I should bite the bullet.” But, you know, it’s like I’m, I would be in every scene, and it would kind of be—it’s kind of the next wackiest challenge would be to do that, to try to do what Clint did so seamlessly all those times. It’s almost impossible to imagine, you know, having directed a film, what it would be like to take on all that and take on a role. But, I don’t know. We’ll see.

I, having worked with James, got really kind of excited about the idea of directing something with a little bit of action in it just because it was so much fun to see the way that he would put those pieces together. And I know that the next time that I direct a film that I want it to be a more guy oriented film because I’ve done a couple of things that are very, very female driven.

But I just did another episode this year of The Closer. I did one last year and they gave me a chance to do another one, and it was great because I actually had an action sequence in it. And I was coming off of Death Sentence, and I was like, "Great, you know, I can—whatever, think about ways to shoot this.” And I was really inspired to do that.

You enjoyed directing Kyra, I take it?

Kevin Bacon: Yeah, I did. I mean, I do. I mean, I—people say, you know, directing Kira, is like turn on the camera, stay out of the way.

Basically, yeah. Is Death Sentence going to be kind of a larger metaphor for anything going on in the world today? I’m just reading from the press notes. I didn’t know if it was meant to be kind of a statement on violence and getting caught up in revenge for something that was done to you, or is it just meant to be more timeless, some kind of a throwback?

Kevin Bacon: You know, I don’t really know. I mean, I guess I feel like that’s a little bit more of a James Wan’ian Jefferson question. I mean, we never talked about any of it as being some kind of a statement. I do think that I wanted to make sure that as a film it wasn’t just cut and dry, kind of good guys, bad guys and the fact that the violence that this guy perpetrates, brings on himself, is tragic and has a terrible effect, ultimately, on his life so that it wouldn’t be in a way, a straight up glorification of picking up the gun. But in terms of bigger kind of political and social issues, that I haven’t really focused on.

Emmy nominations came out. Has there been a celebration in your house for Kyra and Closer?

Kevin Bacon: Yeah. Oh, yeah. We—well, you know, I don’t know if I’ve actually seen her. I’m going to see her tonight but maybe tonight’s the celebration.

Can you talk about the violence levels in this movie? Like how heavy into it, how much we are going to see?

Kevin Bacon: It’s violent. Yeah. I mean, It’s an R. I think it’s an R, yeah. So, it’s, yeah, it’s definitely violent. I mean, you know, I don’t—it’s not like horror violent, you know. It’s not—there’s no torture.

As James Wan was saying, it’s more street, it’s more on ground level.

Kevin Bacon: It’s ground level, street level. It’s very, and because I wanted to play a guy who didn’t know how to fight, didn’t know how to use a gun and had never been in this situation. The violence is very scrappy and very kind of grey. It’s not like [laughter]. You know, it’s very, it’s very visceral, very visceral. I mean, I’ve got to fight [on the subway]. One of my favorite sequences in the film is a chase scene. It starts on foot. The whole thing is on foot and ends up with a fight inside of a car that’s rolling back over the edge. And it’s, I mean, you really feel like you’re inside this car and, you know, it’s very, very visceral.

Did you do your own stunts?

Kevin Bacon: I did a lot of them, you know. I mean, I did as much of—you know, my feeling about stunts is if I can do it, I’ll do it. I don’t like to push it so that, for two reasons. One is that I’m a father, and I don’t want to go anywhere. I’m going to stick around. And the other is that, I don’t want to get injured so that we shut down and the movie takes nine months as opposed to two. But, that being said I like to try to get in there if I can and make it look good. And so it’s always a discussion and a balancing act about how much they let me do basically.

What’s the film you’re doing in New Jersey right now? What’s coming up next after that?

Kevin Bacon: I’m doing a movie called Taking Chance, which is for HBO. It’s a movie about what happens to the remains of fallen soldiers overseas, how they find their way back from wherever they’re killed in action to their final resting place. And I have a movie called Rails and Ties, which is a film directed by Alison Eastwood with Marsha Gay Harden, and I think that’s going to come out sometime this year.