Photo: Josh Stringer/Blumhouse
Kevin Baconis showing his appreciation for a new generation of talent.
The Golden Globe winner, 64, raves to PEOPLE about his young costars from the new Peacock Original filmThey/Them(pronounced “They Slash Them”) as he notes the “timing is really good” for the LGBTQ-themed horror movie, in which he plays the nefarious owner of a conversion therapy camp.
“And certainly not in a sort of mainstream horror genre film,” Bacon adds. “I had a sense of pride about that. I really did.”
He explains that he resonated with writer/director John Logan’s script, as they hoped “some kid who is feeling other than, or closeted, or bullied will watch the film and see someone who’s a little bit more like them, feel a sense of ‘yeah, let’s kick ass’ and solidarity.”
Josh Stringer/Blumhouse
Bacon also hopes that viewers who initially identify with his character Owen Whistler will “maybe adjust their way of thinking about whether people are going to be allowed to have the freedom to live the lives that they are meant to live.”
TheWild Thingsstar admits he doesn’t mind playing the bad guy “if it’s a good part, if it’s a well rounded part, if it’s a complicated part, well written.”
JC Olivera/Getty
“I said, ‘Well, maybe it would be fun to see Owen listen to that and then see him just start to groove along with it,'” he recalls. “But it didn’t ultimately work. And so we took it out. But we did shoot it.
“Only because I thought that would’ve been so weird when people would be like … ‘he’s like a Pink fan or whatever?’ But I loved it. I think it’s a nice moment,” Bacon adds. “And again, it’s one of those moments that in a funny kind of way also turns the whole horror slasher movie thing on its ear, unexpected.”
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Although his young costars — which include Theo Germaine, Quei Tann, Austin Crute, Anna Lore, Monique Kim, Cooper Koch and Darwin del Fabro — enjoyed a viewing of his 1980 seminal slasher flickFriday the 13th, the movie’s parallels toThey/Themdidn’t immediately occur to him.
“I thought about it just in passing… There’s something tongue-in-cheek about me being in the film. But listen, we’ve come a long way sinceFriday the 13th,” Bacon says.
See Bacon inThey/Them, now streaming on Peacock.
source: people.com
