Kevin Bacon had his first encounter with a serial killer when he was 21. He played a camp counselor who meets with a gory fate — an arrow through the throat— in the 1980 slasher movie “Friday the 13th.” Now Bacon, 54, tackles his first continuing series role, facing off with a murderous cult leader in “The Following.”
Bacon’s prime-time move comes after a film career with some stellar credits, including Barry Levinson’s 1982 classic “Diner,” the 1995 true-life drama “Apollo 13,” and the HBO film “Taking Chance,” for which he nabbed best actor Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards in 2009. He also flexed his action movie muscles in 2011 as mutant villain Sebastian Shaw in “X-Men: First Class.”
And who could forget his place in pop culture history — Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, in which players connect the professional dots between him and random Hollywood notables.
In a recent phone interview, the father of two — who lives in New York with his wife of 24 years, former “The Closer” star Kyra Sedgwick — discussed his new series, the recent remake of “Footloose” and the truth behind his wife’s admiration of him.
Q. Why did you choose this project as your first series?
A. I took a long time looking — something like four years. One of the things I became aware of is that I really like stuff that has a real edgy life-and-death kind of situation. That combination with this character I thought was really interesting and complex and messed up.
Q. Do you think most people are drawn to the serial-killer genre?
A. It’s hard to say. I don’t know that just that subject — serial killers — is always going to make people love every single show. You look at television, and you can do, you know, “ER,” and it just really hits people and becomes this massive, iconic thing. And then you can say, well, people want shows with hospitals and you do six s- – tty shows with hospitals, and nobody cares, you know what I mean?
Q. Did you think about “Dexter” when you got this part?
A. I’ve watched every episode. I love it. But it doesn’t pop into my head because it has a really different vibe, even to the way it’s shot. The colors — the hot Miami thing, the color of the shirts and the tans. Something like “The Killing” is a little bit more in line with us, which is another show that I love.
Q. You really fixate on the life-and-death stuff, don’t you?
A. I do like “Modern Family,” too.
Q. You starred in the 1984 dance film “Footloose.” Have you seen the 2011 remake?
A. It was really great! One kind of interesting thing was for the original, they cast nondancers and tried to make us look like we could dance. In this case, they cast incredible dancers. So, really, the dancing was fantastic and technically way above the original.
Q. Are you surprised by how the six degrees game became such a big thing?
A. Yeah. I thought it would just kinda go away. I’m surprised about how long it’s hung in there.
Q. In the January issue of Good Housekeeping magazine, your wife gushed that you don’t lie or cheat and are “honorable,” “ethically true” and have “high moral standards.”
A. I actually wrote all that stuff for her, and just had her say it. She was just reading off of notes I made.