The third time is a charm for this season of the Fox television series The Following. The show began with FBI agent Ryan Hardy ( played by Kevin Bacon ) trying to recapture serial killer Joe Carroll ( James Purefoy ). Season two covered a new cult trying lure to Carroll out of hiding and introduces twins Mark and Luke portrayed by Sam Underwood. Now with season three premiering this month, there is some new blood and a new romance with a doctor, played by Zuleikha Robinson.
The Following is another success for the award-winning Bacon, who has constantly worked in films over the years including Footloose, JFK, A Few Good Men and Mystic River.
In 2012, he was featured in Dustin Lance Black's play 8about the overturning of Prop 8producing money for the American Foundation of Equal Rights.
He has won a Saturn Award for his performance in The Following and a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Award for his HBO endeavor Taking Chance about a war veteran.
Even music is no obstacle for this triple threat. He has released six albums with his brother Michael as The Bacon Brothers.
Windy City Times talked with the multitalented Bacon on the phone with a group of reporters about his LGBT following.
Hi, Kevin. We need the Bacon Brothers to come back to Chicago first of all.
Right on. Yes, we love Chicago.
I know you have played a gay prostitute in a role previously so do you consider yourself to be a big supporter of gay people?
Absolutely. I mean, I think it's people's right to be with whomever they want to be with, to be accepted in society, not rejected from the time they're children, and not bullied is incredibly important. It's important to the fabric of this country and I think that if you really look at the truth about public opinion, I think, as Americans, we can be proud of that even though we have a long way to go. Certainly, it's something that we've made huge in-roads in the last few years. So, yeah, I am a big supporter of LGBT rights.
I appreciate that. I heard you had some fun kissing your co-star James Purefoy during a past press conference for The Following as a joke. How is it working with James again?
All day long I want to kiss him. I mean, I'm crazy about James. It's interesting because from the beginning of the series, one of the essential parts of it was this relationship between these two men. Because he's been on the run so much in the last few seasons the amount of times that we interface is sadly not as many times as I would like because I love playing scenes with him. I think they always come out well.
I will say that through some really kind of great ingenuity amongst the writers that I think some of the best scenes that we've ever played in the course of three seasons, we play this year. So that's always a joy when I see him on the call sheet, or I see him on the set. I have a tremendous amount of fondness for him. It's like you get the ball and you just get to smack it back and forth with a great player.
Who is a more dangerous adversary: Joe Carroll, played by James, or Mark Gray, played by Sam Underwood in season two?
That's a pretty hard to thing to assess. Maybe Mark was more dangerous when there were two of them and his brother was still alive. Sam is such a great actor that they sort of figured out ways this season to try to keep, actually, an aspect of the twins still there.
At the same time, Joe Carroll is Joe Carroll. Both of the characters have one thing that is similar about them is that a lot of the things that they do are driven by ego and by a kind of narcissist.
What's interesting about the character that Michael Ealy, who is Theo, is that he's actually a guy that prefers to be behind the scenesto not be in the limelight. You will see pretty quickly that that is equally as chilling and equally as terrifying. The shark that swims beneath the surface of the water.
What guest stars are coming this season on The Following?
Zuleikha Robinson and Michael Ealy are series regulars and new to the show this season. I'm trying to think who else is new this season. Gregg Henry was here last season.
Hunter Parrish and Ruth Kearney guest-star; they play Kyle and Daisy, a fantastic couple.
How was it working with Zuleikha Robinson so far?
You get thrown into these situations with people that have to become incredibly intimate and there has to be a sort of trust there like right away. Zuleikha and I played a scene the other day where we didn't kiss and I was like, wow, we didn't kiss. This is the first scene we've ever done that we're not kissing in. You have to be able to have somebody that you really feel safe with and feel connected to and she's that. She's just a fantastic person and really willing to just kind of roll up her sleeves and get to work. I'm crazy about her. She also a little mysterious in a way, too, which is cool.
Season one of The Following was full of twists, and season two concentrated on characters. How does season three fall in that spectrum?
I think that we know that our audience enjoys the twists but, at this point, we also know that our audience is very savvy and very much looking for that. So I feel like we're trying not to throw things in there that are twists for the sake of twists. The ones that happen, and the things that are surprising, are still going to be there, but they're going to come like in a really sort of organic way.
I also think that we're trying to keep focused on the emotional content of the show, and what's going on personally with these characters, because without that it doesn't really land.
There is a box in the second episode. That box is a very, very creepy thing, but the reason that it really works is because of what's set up with the emotional and personal connection to it.
That's why it works. Those are the things that I like to focus on and the things that I get to play.
I am constantly sort of lobbying for as much as we can mine from what's going on with people in their private lives, what's going on outside of the case, and how does whatever is happening in your life, outside of the case, reflect back to the case.
The show is known for being a little dark. Is that what attracted you to the project?
As I went through this process of trying to figure out what I was going to do in television, I started to realize that the things that I was drawn to, both as a reader and as a watcher, were things that had very high stakes, life and death situations. While I enjoy light material and I certainly sometimes wonder what it's doing to me to be going to such a dark space all the time, I can't help it. I'm drawn to the high stakes and that's what this show offers me.
What continues to challenge you as an actor after being in so many different things?
I feel like that's what I look for. I look for challenges. Certainly taking on an hour drama on a network series was a new challenge for me and I find that it's challenging pretty much every day I go to work, either physically or emotionally, and I try my best to push the writers to give me new challenges, as many as possible.
That's really the way I analyze a script is how far they're going to push me. That's just kind of like the way I am.
From an acting standpoint, I feel like when I was a kid I thought I knew everything there was to know and, as the years go by the search that I have to get deeper, more connected and, hone this craft becomes more intensive as I get older. I think, as you get older, you realize how much more there is to know and to learn and how much better you can get if you really work at it.