Kevin Bacon gets real about nudity and being a male sex object: ‘It’s not the worst thing’
Amazon/ YouTube
Kevin Bacon on Amazon’s “I Love Dick.”
Kevin Bacon doesn’t mind being the object of desire on his provocatively titled new television series, “I Love Dick.”
“Look, to be objectified at my age is not the worst thing,” Bacon, 58, told Business Insider earlier this week.
He plays the titular Dick on Amazon’s show, which premieres on Friday. Adapted from Chris Kraus’ 1997 cult feminist novel of the same name, the series from “Transparent” creator Jill Soloway follows frustrated filmmaker Chris (Kathryn Hahn), who travels with her writer husband Sylvère (Griffin Dunne) to a writing residency in Marfa, Texas. Amid a sexual dry spell with her husband, Chris becomes infatuated with Dick, an acclaimed sculptor and the residency’s benefactor.
“I thought that it was a really interesting idea,” Bacon said of Chris’ obsession with Dick. “I like the idea that this show is so female-driven, with no men in the writers’ room. And Jill Soloway talked about the idea of the female gaze as like a piece of art.”
Bacon talked to Business Insider about the new series, why he’s in love with TV, the state of the film industry, and why he’s gotten a reputation for shedding his clothes on camera.
Jethro Nededog: How do you feel about being sexually objectified for “I Love Dick”?
Kevin Bacon: I thought that was a very interesting idea. I also felt like to be able to do the show for hopefully multiple seasons and over a long period of time, we needed to have something more than just objectification. And so we talked about ways that you can see inside this man, what his experiences were, what was troubling to him, and what he was struggling with. Over the course of the show, especially toward the last few episodes, we definitely get there.
Nededog: Dick initially dismisses Chris, her talents, and her obsession with him. Is that a front for what he really feels for her?
Amazon
“I Love Dick” stars Kevin Bacon and Kathryn Hahn.
Bacon: Yeah, I think that his dismissal of her — at least my backstory — is that he’s immediately kind of taken with her. She’s a very powerful presence. And when you look at the very first scene that we meet, before he finds out she has a husband, it’s very clear that he’s attracted to her. But he has made a decision as a character, in my mind, that he’s no longer going to break up marriages. It’s something that I think this guy has done before. So when he finds out that her husband is a fellow there at the institute, he pushes away. But I think underlying the whole thing, the whole series, is his kind of undeniable attraction to her.
Nededog: The original inspiration for the Dick of the novel, British writer Dick Hebdige, has famously expressed that he’s not at all pleased about being its subject. Can you understand where he’s coming from?
Bacon: Yes, I can. At one point — in episode six or something — the Griffin Dunne character says, “Oh, come on. You love this. You gotta love it.” And Dick says, “I’ll tell you the truth: It’s humiliating.” And I think that part of what’s interesting about that is that it’s a little bit of the insight into what the female experience must be. It’s kind of like when somebody says to a woman, “Well, come on. If I tell you you look hot, how can you not like that?” And I think that there’s a statement there. When this guy says, I don’t like the way this feels.
Nededog: You have some nudity in this role and, notably, you haven’t been shy about getting naked in your movies in the past. Now that you’re at this stage in your career, how have your feelings toward being nude for a role changed?
Bacon: I think it’s become something that really goes job to job. Does it work to see something? My problem with nudity though — I did a movie called “Wild Things,” it was full-frontal nudity. And I didn’t have a problem with it, because it’s a scene getting out of the shower and it was just that kind of movie. What I did have a problem with was the fact that when I went to promote the movie — and even to this day — that’s all I talk about. So it kind of ended up being, I don’t know, just kind of boring to me as a topic of conversation. In the case of “I Love Dick,” the last scene in the pilot, I go out and I get in the water. It’s a beautiful place, a scene of kind of a baptism for the character. He’s in a way starting life over again with new ideas and change and I think it’s a really nice shot and it looks good and it makes a lot of sense for that thing. I did a little thing, I think it was for Mashable, where it was a public service announcement saying that we needed more male nudity. And the amount of people that saw it seriously blows my mind. They said, “You said it in that thing,” and it’s so clearly a joke. I mean, I’m so clearly being a smartass. It’s strange.
Nededog: The setting of the show, Marfa, Texas, is a pretty tight-knit artist colony. Set in that kind of place, can the story still be universal?
Amazon
Kevin Bacon is an artist cowboy on “I Love Dick.”
Bacon: The story is about love, art, desire, sex, marriage. Marfa is kind of like a character on the show. And I think what Marfa gives us is a chance to see, from my standpoint, a world where a man has gone there and created a kingdom where he can be king. And now he’s a reluctant kind of ruler of that kingdom. He’s starting to have doubts about his power and about whether or not he’s comfortable in this situation. I think that it also is a place where art is extremely important to the show. And also the show is made in an artistic, arthouse kind of way. The way it’s shot, the use of film technique, the use of female filmmakers dispersed throughout the show. And I think that a cowboy persona works really well for us. I think originally the show was set in upstate New York. And when I think about that, I’m really glad they found this incredible place to make things jump.
Nededog: The show premiered at Sundance, and the reviews weren’t all positive. How do you feel about that?
Bacon: I don’t read reviews. I haven’t read reviews in 25 years.
Nededog: That’s amazing. How do you avoid them?
Bacon: Well, it’s difficult to avoid them. I mean our conversation is an example of how difficult it is. People tend to, whether you want it or not, they sort of give you the headlines. But I don’t want to see specifically, because I grew up in a tough town. And there was a street, I’d walk down that street every day. If I walked down that street and I risk that somebody was going to kick my ass, then I’m gonna stop walking down that street, you know? So that’s the way I feel about reviews. I read other people’s reviews. Sometimes I’m interested to see what people think about a project, but I just can’t put myself through that.
Nededog: People know you as a movie star, but you starred on Fox’s “The Following” and now you’re doing “I Love Dick.” What’s the appeal of TV for you?
Bacon: I think that TV is where the writers went. When the writers went to television, the actors kind of followed. I turned around a few years ago when I decided to do “The Following.” I looked at the material that I was talking to my friends about and consuming, and it was all on TV. And I said, “I want a piece of that. I wanna be a part of that.” Also my wife [Kyra Sedgwick] was having a lot of success and enjoyment on “The Closer,” which is the show that she did for a few years, a lot of years on cable. Eight years, I guess. And I saw how satisfying that was for her, so that’s where I decided to go.
Nededog: You’re like the poster child for prolific careers. I mean, “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” has been a thing for over 20 years. Is there a role you still wish you could play?
Bacon: I don’t know if there’s one specific role. It’s kind of like, when I read something, I say, “Okay, this is where I go next.” There’s no time where I’m going, “I’ve never done a fireman,” or whatever the person would be. Not specifically, no.
Nededog: Last week on “Saturday Night Live,” host Chris Pine made fun of how interchangeable he is with a bunch of other actors named Chris, like Chris Pratt, Chris Evans, and Chris Hemsworth. Over your long career, have you seen that kind of shift in the movie industry?
Bacon: I never thought about it. That’s really interesting. I don’t know. What I think is it’s partly that the industry has changed. Movies, I mean there’s been a lot written and said that studios make way fewer movies and they spend more money on them individually. There’s a lot of good work and good writing going to television. Somebody said to me once that years ago, kids stayed home and watched TV and grown-ups went to the movies. And now that’s kind of turned on its ear. Kids go to the movies and grown-ups stay home and watch interesting series or challenging or more violent or more sexually explicit ones. Just envelope-pushing content is often not in the theater. It’s at home on your TV.
Nededog: You’re well-known for taking complicated parts and indie-film roles. Would you want to do a movie franchise that may contract you for three or four films?
Bacon: Yeah, sure, of course I would. The only one I’ve ever done that’s sort of like that was “X-Men: First Class.” The part didn’t repeat, but I’d do it for sure. It’s not that I don’t like those kinds of movies when they’re good. “Guardians of the Galaxy” is fantastic. “Logan” is also a great movie. When they’re great, like anything else, you can have a comic book that works really, really well as a franchise. So, sure, I would, yeah.
Nededog: “Footloose” is obviously a hallmark of your career. Are you always game to do the “Footloose” dance?
Bacon: No, no, no.
Nededog: But you’re still proud of it?
Bacon: Yeah, absolutely. It changed my life in a lot of ways. I was really grateful to have it.
Nededog: There’s something about the “Footloose” themes that remain relevant over the years.
Bacon: There always seems to be somebody on Twitter saying, “Hey, they just banned dancing — you gotta come to our town.”
Watch a trailer for “I Love Dick” below:
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