Podcrushed - Kevin Bacon

Episode Date: September 27, 2023

This week we get to experience Kevin Bacon in the first degree! Kevin tells us all about his new podcast, Six Degrees with Kevin Bacon, how his mother influenced his passion for philanthropy, and how he came out of the womb seeking attention. Kevin shares why fame doesn't bother him (too much), how he draws inspiration for his spirited Tik Tok account, and most significantly, finally agrees to share a piece of marriage advice.  Instagram TikTok XSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lemonada. From my earliest memories, way before I even knew what the word actor was, if I walked into a room, I wanted people look at me. It just was a, it was just a desire, like just a, like a deep-seated sickness. Welcome to Pod Crushed. We're hosts. I'm Penn. I'm Nava. And I'm Sophie. And I think we could have been your middle school besties. Trying to figure out how many degrees we are from Kevin Bacon. Welcome to Pod Crushed.

My co-hosts, Nava and Sophie are here with me today. Hello. But they're not speaking. No, that's silly. That's stupid. Nava, you had something, didn't you? Well, my sister has been visiting, and we went to Venice Beach. I'd never been before.

And we walked by, you know, they have like all the different tables. There was a table that said palm reader, and I have never gone to see a palm reader and never thought I would on Venice Beach, but on a lark. I was like, let's go talk to the palm reader. So sat down, fully expecting it to just be like a funny thing that my sister and I would remember after her trip. And the palm reader instantly started to like say things on my palm that were sensitive and true. My dad and sister were like hovering over me. And I was like, oh my God. I like really wanted them to leave so that she could like say more and I could like ask her questions.

But I also didn't know how to tell my dad to leave. It was crazy. She gave me such an accurate reading. Some of it was really positive. Some of it was like harm, not harmful, but it was like stuff that you need to change. And it was all true. So this like palm reader on Venice Beach has like some kind of ability to read the palm. And then it was so good.

It was so good that my dad was like, Jenna, you need to do it. And he paid for her to get her palm read. And her palm reading was extremely accurate. Nava, do you have her name, her number, her booth number? I know, everyone wants to know this. I don't have any of her details. I'll be strolling the beaches of Venice to find her again, and then I'll let everyone know who she is.

You need to find one of those people who draws pictures in the courtroom. Yeah, exactly. I don't want to talk about novice palms anymore. So try. No, I do find that very interesting, and I wish we could go on. I wish we could, like, maybe interview a palm reader, but we can't. We have to talk to celebrities.

Like Kevin Bacon, we have Kevin Bacon. Very significantly, it's the strike. the SAG After Strike, so we didn't talk about a single one of his projects. And I can't name them right here. What we did is we delved right into his past, right into his childhood. And he, well, I mean, actually, he did not disappoint. He reminded me a lot of Rob Lowe in that, I mean, specifically age 12, getting into life as a performer is exactly what he was doing. And it was just, it was a rich vein we were exploring the whole time.

Let me tell you a little bit about what Kevin Bacon does. Six Degrees.org connects people to resources. and stories to make a positive impact in local communities. Their focus areas are young people, justice, and the environment. Kevin also has a podcast of the same name, six degrees with Kevin Bacon, where he interviews his

celebrity connections about their favorite nonprofits, highlighting the work of change makers in these organizations who make a huge difference, but, you know, they make a difference, which is like hugely more than making no difference.

We did have a lovely time with Mr. Bacon. And you will too, so don't go anywhere. We will be right back. Does anyone else ever get that nagging feeling that their dog might be bored? And do you also feel like super guilty about it? Well, one way that I combat that feeling is I'm making meal time everything it can be for my little boy, Louis. NomNum does this with food that actually engages your pup senses with a mix of tail. tantalizing smells, textures, and ingredients.

Nom Nom offers six recipes bursting with premium proteins, vibrant veggies and tempting textures designed to add excitement to your dog's day. Pork potluck, chicken cuisine, turkey fair, beef mash, lamb, pilaf, and turkey and chicken cookout. I mean, are you kidding me? I want to eat these recipes. Each recipe is cooked gently in small batches to seal in vital nutrients and maximize digestibility. And their recipes are crafted by vettings. nutritionist. So I feel good, knowing it's design with Louis' health and happiness in mind.

Serve nom-nom-nom as a complete and balanced meal or as a tasty and healthy addition to your dog's current diet. My dogs are like my children, literally, which is why I'm committed to giving them only the best. Hold on. Let me start again because I've only been talking about Louie. Louis is my beep. Louis, you might have heard him growl just now. Louis is my little baby, and I'm committed to only giving him the best. I love that Nom Nom's recipes contain wholesome nutrient rich food, meat that looks like meat and veggies that look like veggies because, shocker, they are.

Louis has been going absolutely nuts for the lamb pilaf. I have to confess that he's never had anything like it and he cannot get enough. So he's a lamb-peelaf guy. Keep mealtime exciting with NomNum, available at your local pet smart store or at Chewy. Learn more at trynom.com. com slash podcrushed, spelled try n-o-m.com slash podcrushed.

Hey, it's Lena Waithe. Legacy Talk is my love letter to black storytellers, artists who've changed the game and paved the way for so many of us. This season, I'm sitting down with icons like Felicia Rashad, La Reddy Devine, Eva Du René, and more. We're talking about their journeys, their creative process, and the legacies they're building every single day. Come be a part of the conversation. Season 2 drops July 29. Listen to Legacy Talk wherever you get your podcast, or watch us on YouTube. All right, so we'll start it simply. By the time 12-year-old Kevin Bacon was who we was becoming who we would be, like, what was the lead up to that? What was your childhood like? Any of your family life at home that you can share? I grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,

Right in the middle of Philly, the neighborhood is called Center City. My father was working for the city, and he was a city planner in Philadelphia, that they needed to raise their children in the middle of the city and not in the suburbs. And I'm the youngest of six. There's a very large age gap between me and my next oldest sister. So my parents had a couple of girls right before World War II. My father went off to the Navy when they were little girls. And then a few years later, he had three in a row, and then eight years later had me.

And so I was a mistake to say to lose, although my mother sort of would deny that. But, you know, there's no way that you have five kids. And they go, I got a good idea. Let's have another one. Actually, my sister, my half-sister, we didn't grow up together, has that, has like a huge age gap between the last one. She has six kids. And although it wasn't necessarily intended, it was like this joy that the way she tells it is like they sort of needed the last one. Well, definitely.

Were you needed? I don't know if I was needed, but I definitely have been told not to pat myself. on the back that it was a joy and they were really excited about it and um we all went to public schools uh you know partly because i think my parents again felt strongly about the urban experience but i think also because it just would have been too expensive um they were while my father was a very very successful man in his in his field and very well known and influential and you know wrote a book that was used as a textbook in design and architecture classes he was not a wealthy man and never had any kind of a real notion of how to make money and it was also not only that it was also kind of

look down upon as as the pursuit of something that lacked purity or artistic purity or something like that my mother was raised as a little girl her parents were very wealthy she was like a Park Avenue socialite

but she but that family pretty much squandered whatever money they had and she also fundamentally turned her back on everything that she was raised with she became devoted

to the poor specifically to poor children and she was an activist very involved with several rights and with the Vietnam War

ending the Vietnam War so I kind of grew up in that activist kind of point of view with an incredible audience which was my brothers and sisters who were so

ready for me to perform for them the second I came out. So that's interesting to hear. And so was it always music first and then acting, or was it just like performance in general? It was performance in general, I think, you know, although my parents weren't musicians, but they loved music. And my brother always talks about how they had kind of designed their house as a big stereo system in a funny kind of way. It was a real skinny row house and they put the speakers

at one under the house and the controller at the other end. And so, you know, we're talking about either radio or turntable, obviously. My brother was, and my sister, Hilda, was both very, very into

what was called jug band, folk music, blues. They had bands when they were kids. So, you know, if you grow up you hear somebody playing an instrument or um writing a song in the house or whatever you know you kind of want to like jump on to that but i think that um it was mostly that any kind of creativity was put on a pedestal yeah in our house so but so were your parents it sounds like your parents at least

the way you've described in so far were they artists too or were they just they loved the arts They both were really excellent kind of illustrators, although they never chose to do it as a living. My father had been trained as an architect, although he never really chose to do that as a living. He was more a city planner. My mother was an artist when she was younger, or at least loved to paint,

but she kind of gave that up in order to work in housing projects and teach nurse school and stuff like that. So, no. We used to say my father was so tone-deaf that when he'd sing us a lullaby, we'd pretend to be asleep. Listen to it anymore. My mother, I think, played a little bit of mandolin.

A little bit of mando. There was a mandolin line around. I don't know. I can't really remember her playing. But if you could take a dance class, make a costume, draw a picture, you know,

build something, create something, whatever that would be. A play, a performance, write a song. That's the stuff that they, that they were really,

really big on. Not sports. Not money making. Sounds so rich. I mean, it sounds like lovely. I'm sure there was all kinds of stuff or whatever. It was great in a lot of ways.

But I think that a lot of us had very, very different kind of experiences. You know, I was just with three of my sisters recently. And we just got into a discussion about just about our mother. And their point of view about who she was is so vastly different, you know. And I find that really interesting in big families, you know, because everybody had a different experience with that same person. Yeah. Different parents. Different parents, yeah, and different times.

And then also the age that you're at, where you're at in the number of children. And so my experience was very different. But I had a, you know, there's a lot of talk about, you know, good art coming from tragedy and sadness. And, you know, there's no doubt that I had sadness and tragedy and both of those things and danger and, you know, disappointment and loneliness. But I think all things considered, it was pretty good. I mean, if nothing else, they were very supportive of whatever I wanted to do as whatever kind of an artist I wanted to be. And so, yes, music was important.

I started writing songs when I was about 12. Perfect for us. Yeah. Go there. Yeah. The first song I wrote was All the World Looks Lonely Through Lonely Eyes. It was a song that I wrote. for Michael Jackson

and I'm going to do a little of it for you. And I brought a mandolin. As in he wanted Michael Jackson to hear that song, right? He didn't ask you to. Wow. No, no, no, no. I wanted to cut it. We were exactly

the same age and so you know, I had such a parallel kind of I felt the parallel kind of thing with him. I've heard him say that about you. I don't think so. No. Big family, you know, and I wanted to be pop star and so um but at that point i didn't play an instrument so i would my brother who was always

very supportive of me as a musician uh even though i was just kind of a punk kid um i would sing him uh the songs that i wrote um and the melodies and the words and he would figure out the changes he would figure it out like what the how to play it on the guitar or whatever and And so, you know, I really was driven at that time, unlike my parents, where I kind of veered off, was that I really wanted to be super famous, I really wanted a lot of money, and I really wanted girls, and I would do anything to get that. and I didn't really care if it was being an actor

or being a musician and a lot of the people that I was aspiring to were kind of both the monkeys you know even the Beatles you know kind of acted in things totally they did

Bobby Sherman and David Cassie the Partridge family you know these were the Jackson's these were people that it didn't really matter if it was acting or music or whatever that was all kind of one thing in my head which was pop stardom so uh when i actually picked up a guitar probably around that time my brother got me a guitar um i was like shit this is hard

this hurts my fingers it's so hard at the beginning it really is so hard you're you're you're a guitar player. I am. And I'm not a guitar player. No, I'm learning. I'm not a guitar player at all. But no, but you're learning, which is the hardest part. I mean, it's so hard at the beginning. It's really hard. It hurts so much. You know, just quick

aside, I had this incredible experience the other night of playing, singing with Billy Joel at the garden. And I was backstage with my wife. And my wife when she was, I think she's 50, I got her ukulele.

and she'd never played an instrument in her life and she loves it and it's you know she's just she really you know just kind of took to it and she has so much fun with it and recently the song that she's been playing is this Billy Joel song called Vienna I don't know if you know it's a great song

and it's hard it's a hard song it's got all these bizarre changes in it and stuff, and she, this is the one that she has chosen, you know, to, like, work out on the ukulele. And I had to embarrass her in front of Billy and say, you know, you know, Kier's been learning

Vienna on the ukulele. He's like, on the ukulele. Insulted. Like, hard changes on a ukulele. I've never heard those. Exactly. He's like, can you even play like a G-sharp minor or a ukulele?

Is that even a possibility? Then he goes, let me see your fingers. Oh, wow. You wanted to see if she had been practicing so much that she has, you know, the calluses, which you don't really get from the ukulele, by the way. But yeah, so I, when I started really playing the guitar, I realized a couple of things, I think, even if it wasn't like an aha moment, I think I realized that this was going to,

I didn't want to work quite that hard for my dream of pop stardom. I'd rather have it come a little bit easier. so I decided to try acting. And so at that point, you're, I mean, was it really 12 or did that happen at 15? No, no, 12, yeah. And I got into, well, my mother encouraged it. I think she encouraged it partly because she knew

that my brother was already having a life in music and maybe I should do something different. But maybe I knew that. maybe or I don't know but I can tell you that the drive was to you know be famous

but when I got into the acting class I went oh this is amazing like as a kid I mean I just you know I just loved it I just loved it I had the same experience at 12 like well you were in the acting class at 12 class i might have done a little bit earlier but i mean i moved to la when i was 12 so i know at least

i know at that i know at that age not knowing what you're getting into but knowing it's like what this is so i wouldn't have used this word but it's so fulfilling you know rewarding and enriching it's just it just kind of opens opens the world up to you totally totally as a little boy uh in a in a tough town um you know trying to be tough and trying to be tough and trying to you know just kind of like navigate those streets and the school yard and all of a sudden in an acting class you know i could i didn't have to do that you get in touch with your feelings yeah yeah which was not something that came that you're drawn to as a as a 12 year old boy you know what i mean anywhere but it sounds like maybe especially

where you were yeah it was not a it was not a thing for a 12 year old boy so you know to get in there and you know whatever whatever you do when you start starting whatever stretching or you know making noises or you know pretending you're like a monkey or you know whatever it is you know what i mean it's like wow this is really uh without knowing the word as you said fulfilling i didn't know the word therapeutic but it was therapeutic yeah definitely stick around we'll be right back all right so um let's just let's just real talk as they say for a second that's a little bit of an aged thing to say now that that that dates me doesn't it um but no real talk uh how important is your health to you you know on like a one to ten and i don't mean the in the sense of vanity i mean

in the sense of like you want your day to go well right you want to be less stressed you don't want it as sick when you have responsibilities um i know myself i'm a householder i have I have two children and two more on the way, a spouse, a pet, a job that sometimes has its demands. So I really want to feel like when I'm not getting the sleep and I'm not getting nutrition, when my eating's down, I want to know that I'm being held down some other way physically. My family holds me down emotionally, spiritually, but I need something to hold me down physically, right? And so honestly, I turn to symbiotica, these vitamins and these beautiful little packets that they taste delicious and I'm telling you um even before I started doing ads for these guys

it was a product that I uh I really really liked and enjoyed and could see the differences with um the three that I use I use uh the what is it called liposomal vitamin C and it tastes delicious like really really good um comes out in the packet you put it right in your mouth some people don't do that I do it I think it tastes great I use the liposomal glutathione as well in a morning, really good for gut health, and although I don't need it, you know, anti-aging. And then I also use the magnesium L3 and 8, which is really good for, I think, mood and stress. I sometimes use it in the morning, sometimes use it at night. All three of these things taste incredible.

Honestly, you don't even need to mix it with water. And yeah, I just couldn't recommend them highly enough. If you want to try them out, go to symbiotica.com slash podcrush for 20% off plus free shipping. That's symbiotica.com slash podcrushed for 20% off plus free shipping. The first few weeks of school are in the books, and now's the time to keep that momentum going. I-XL helps kids stay confident and ahead of the curve. I-XL is an award-winning online learning platform that helps kids truly understand what they're learning. Whether they're brushing up on math or diving into social studies, it covers math, language arts, science, and social studies from pre-K through 12th grade, with content that's engaging,

personalized, and yes, actually fun. It's the perfect tool to keep learning going without making it feel like school. I actually used I Excel quite a bit when I was teaching fifth grade. I used it for my students to give like extra problems for practice or sometimes I also used it to just check on what the standards were in my state for any given topic in math or reading or writing. It's just a helpful tool all around for teachers, for parents, for students. I honestly do love it. Studies have shown that kids who use IXL score higher on tests. This has been proven in almost every state in the U.S. So if your child is struggling, this is a smart investment that you can make in their learning. A single hour of tutoring costs more than a month of IXL. Don't miss out. One in four students in the U.S. are learning

with IXL, and IXL is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the U.S. make an impact on your child's learning, get I-Exel now. And Podcrush listeners can get an exclusive 20% off IXL memberships when they sign up today at Iexl.com slash podcrushed. Visit Ixl.com slash podcrushed to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. As the seasons change, it's the perfect time to learn something new. Whether you're getting back into a routine after summer or looking for a new challenge

before the year ends, Rosetta Stone makes it easy to turn a few minutes a day into real language progress. Rosetta Stone is the trusted leader in language learning for over 30 years. Their immersive, intuitive method helps you naturally absorb and retain your new language on desktop or mobile whenever and wherever it fits your schedule. Rosetta Stone immerses you in your new language naturally, helping you think and communicate with confidence. There are no English translation so you truly learn to speak, listen, and think in your chosen language. The other day I was actually at the grocery store and I asked one of the people working there if they could help me find a specific item and she was like, sorry, I actually

don't speak English. She only spoke Spanish and I was like, if only I, my Spanish was good enough to be able to have this conversation in Spanish, we would be sorted. And that's where Rosetta Stone comes in. I really need to get back on my Rosetta Stone grind. With 30 years of experience, millions of users, and 25 languages to choose from, including Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and more. Rosetta Stone is the go-to tool for real language growth. A lifetime membership gives you access to all 25 languages so you can learn as many as you want whenever you want. Don't wait.

Unlock your language learning potential now. Podcrush listeners can grab Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 50% off. That's unlimited access to 25 language courses for life. Visit rosettastone.com slash podcrush. to get started and claim you're 50% off today. Don't miss out. Go to rosettastone.com slash podcrush and start learning today. I've gotten such an interesting picture of your parents from what you've told us.

And even just the first thing you said, which was that your dad was a city planner, you worked for the city. And so they were adamant that they would raise you all in the city, like six kids. I think that to be so committed to like a value is quite rare. they're very values driven people and I wonder sometimes as a kid I think you can go either way like you can become really interested in what your parents are

or you can you can sort of not be and I wonder what that was like for you at that age like around 12 did you feel that that rubbed off on you or was it something you pushed back on? I think maybe the fundamental piece of

you know being open to other people's opinions and feeling a sense of compassion was there but the rest of it I mean doing anything

for society you want to be famous I want to be famous I want to do for me I was like I had the hunger in the belly and the eye on the prize and

pretty young ready to go I mean I remember high school I mean I say that but I was also you know getting high

and, you know, experimenting with all kinds of things that, you know, that you... That you do when you're famous. Yeah. You're like, I got to practice. I don't see any kind of opposition here. Yeah, I got out of the system before I turned into a teenager. I mean, I, honestly, I was so, it's not like I was waking up every day and only, you know, trying to get to an audition. I did a lot of that, but I was also, you know, hanging out with.

my friends and falling in and out of love like you know twice a week and and all that kind of stuff um but it i i definitely wasn't thinking about uh the world or politics or or any of that i was trying to get out of high school so i could get out of town yeah Kevin when did dancing become part of the picture for you. I always liked to dance. I was never afraid. You know, a lot of times you get in this thing with boys,

you know, 12, 12, 13, 14 year old boys don't get on the floor. You know, I would get on the floor in a heartbeat. I loved it. I just did that kind of dancing, you know, especially slow dancing. And I remember how to dance, you know, every time, you know, we had this teacher,

he'd go running over to the record player and, you know, pull off, you know, whatever it was, Earthwinded fire or, you know, stylistics, and then everyone else would run back in and slap another slow record on, and he'd go over there and dank the slow record off. I was totally, totally into it. And, but I didn't, you know,

when I did the dance movie, I was not a dancer. I wasn't trained as a dancer. It was nothing that had anything to do with, I mean, I didn't even really, if I'm being honest, I didn't even really understand that it was a dance movie. I thought it was just a movie and then like where they would indicate that there was dancing, I would just get up and just, you know, get too much. Like I was just, I was like, because they said something about a choreographer.

I said, you don't really need a choreographer. You know, I'll just get up and dance. That's not a big deal. Just play the record for me and I'll jump around. So it wasn't a, I was definitely not trained by any stretch of the imagination. When you had your first sort of encounter with fame, how was that, as someone who was like longing for it? How did it feel?

Uh-huh. Well, I can tell you that, so fame, the first time I ever really got a little taste of fame was when I was on soap operas. I started out on a couple of soap operas here in Manhattan. And that was a weird thing because when you're on soap operas, they think of you as a character. I was Tim the Teenage Alcoholic. In fact, I was on this show, and they had this...

In those days, I don't know if it's still the same, but in those days, the cast was never... allowed to communicate with the person that was writing the scripts. Somehow the producers thought that this would be a terrible, terrible idea that they would start asking, I don't know, they just were really, really scared about it. And we happened to be at some kind of a retreat, and the writer, creator of the show that I was on was there. And we had this sidebar. where he said, you know, is there anything you've ever, you know, wanted to play? And I said, well, either a young man having an affair with an older woman.

Wow. Or a teenage alcoholic. These are two things that were probably, you know, important in my life at that time. So they were just off the top of my head. Yeah. And sure enough, like literally like the next week, the pressure builds on, on Tim. and he reaches in the cabinet and pours himself a scotch and takes a drink. I was like, bingo.

The other one never panned out, unfortunately, but I became Tim the teenage alcoholic. And, you know, the thing was that people would come up to me and say, Tim, you need to listen to your aunt. She knows better than you. And you've got to stop drinking. And so because you're in the liberal. living room like every day. You're in their stories.

You're in their stories, right. That's a real different kind of place. So that was really my first taste of it. And how did I feel about it? I loved it. And at this point where you're in New York? I've moved to New York. I'm about...

17? 18? I moved to New York when I was 17, but I don't think I got on the soaps until I was about 19. Although, I'll tell you an interesting fame-related stories. went out to do an incredibly famous movie that it's about, it was my very first movie. I had no agent. It was a movie about guys in a fraternity and two rival fraternities, a comedy. And I came back to New York and I had gone, blown through all the money that I had.

And I was working as a waiter, which I had been for years. And I had to ask for the night off from the restaurant. where I was working and my boss gave me the night off and I went to the premiere and I was like wow this is amazing and I'm in a movie and like my stars just when it shines so brightly and I got to the premiere I took the subway down it was in Times Square not too far from here and and there was a red rope and I was on the other side of it and I saw the rest of the cast who had arrived from L.A. getting out of a limousine and walking in with a ticket that I didn't have. Wow.

And somebody saw me and pulled me underneath the rope and took pity on me and, you know, got me a seat. And then I went down to the party, which was at the Village Gate, was a big club here in New York at the time. And I couldn't get anybody to recognize me. My hair had grown. I had a really short haircut. I just looked different. and I didn't have a big part

and I literally went home, went back to the restaurant and hung out with my friends in this restaurant where I worked it was a bar, not really, I mean they had food, but it was basically a bar and, you know, just kind of hung out

with my friends. And so it was a great humbling kind of moment of saying, you know, don't get too wrapped up in your own legend. Don't start to believe that this is always going to be, you know, beautiful. This would be an ideal place to segue into the rest of your career,

but we do want to just circle back real quick to, you know, a few classic questions we ask about middle school. Sure, yeah, great. You did mention at some point that you were in and out of love every like two weeks or something like this. Yeah. Unsuccessfully, by the way.

So then tell us about that. I mean, what was your first crush and your first heartbreak? Oh, man. There were so many, I fell in love with a ballerina who had come in from out of town to study at the Pennsylvania Ballet

and she had a boyfriend, older boyfriend, you know. A lot of times it was, I was in love with someone who was my age and they had a boyfriend who was two or three years older than them, you know. I remember that. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's just kind of like the way it is. But I was a very, very romantic person when it came to. crushes

you know crushes were just very strong and do you remember your first my very first crush honestly I came out with a crush I swear

I mean I don't remember ever not feeling you know something drawing me to some female I just don't

I mean young like really young um i can't i can't really explain it but it's uh just but no specifically not really but i can i can i can bet that it was probably somebody that was older than me and and probably somebody that was completely unattainable but a lot of times it would be um you know like any other little boy i was i was you know scared to ask the question to say you know we had this thing where you had to say to somebody do I stand a chance I remember the first time I ever said to a girl

do I stand a chance I was on the phone with her I'd call her house all the time and I'd only see her at school because she didn't live in my neighborhood but I'd call her house all the time and we'd be on the phone for like a really long time talking about absolutely nothing

but I'd just be, you know, and I finally got up the nerve to say, do I stand a chance? And it's those words, literally, that was like, yeah, that's what you said. Culturally at that point, you said, you know, like, as I know what it would be now, I want to hook up with you. Sure, you know, I don't even know what it would be or I want to, you know. I don't either. Honestly, I like that. It's kind of humble. It's like, just tell me.

Yeah, right, exactly. Exactly, yeah. So I finally worked up the nerve. I said, do I stand a chance? And she said, me, go out with you? I said, yeah, she said, me, go out with little old you? I said, yeah, she said, okay. Oh, and it's so much better than I thought.

That's really sweet, actually. All the language of the time. I love that little old you. Yeah. And you were like, yeah, you didn't back, you didn't back. down. That's really cute Kevin. Okay, I am going to like catapult. My heart's actually pounding

now just thinking about how nervous I was. Dude, I was getting nervous. It was right up there with singing with Billy Joel. Yeah, that's amazing. Wait, I do want to just fast forward to the future. I, in doing some prep, saw a really cute interview where Kira tells the story of how you guys went out and she

tells it as though you tricked her and I would love to hear your version of how you and Kira first went out. Like, tricked her. Yeah. Okay. Well, I can tell you that when it came to Kira, and Kira's got an interesting situation because I was not,

let's, up until, you know, I moved to New York when I was 17. And up to 17, you know, I really was pretty awkward with girls, you know, in the way that I would, you know, try to get with somebody, you know, try to date someone or stand a chance or whatever you have a room.

I love that for us. You want to call. When I got to New York, things changed a lot. And it was the 70s in New York, like,

cinematically also, and also, you know, culturally was known as the scariest, most dangerous time you could be. here and there was the summer of Sam and there was the blackout and there was you know all this crazy shit was going down and uh right before the um the you know the AIDS thing happened in the in the early 80s but for me even though I was you know robbed a couple of times and robbed at gunpoint it was still the greatest most fun like I loved it and

And I was, you know, how can I put this? I was, I did, I was, I was, I figured out the right way to try to ask somebody out. Like it, like it, you know, it was, it was, I, I was less, I was more confident than I was as, as a teenager, you know, I was definitely. like just energized and, you know, doing my career and, you know, going to the clubs and working in the bars and doing all that kind of stuff. By the time I met Cura, I had been in a really, really long relationship. And I was completely, completely out of practice when it came to relating to somebody that I was attracted to. I mean, hopeless. I had, so I was really kind of like stumbling around her and what she perceives as trying to trick her was me just going

I just don't know how to I just don't know how to do this anymore like I really don't know what to do here and so she didn't even know I just kept saying let's all go out to dinner but what I really wanted to do is go out with her but I just didn't have the I don't know I didn't I was too afraid to ask her out, basically. And eventually, I figured out that if she, I was in the nice hotel and she could come over to my nice hotel. I could talk her into coming to the hotel and I think she was going to get a massage at the hotel or something like that. and somehow I timed it so that we were coming out of the gym at the same time

or something like that and I said, oh, well, do you want to get some dinner? And, you know, it was like that. So maybe it was a trick, I don't know. It was very sweet. I think she said that you found out what time her massage was and made sure you were at the gym at the exact.

That's right. Yeah. That's very sweet. By the way, you think the hotel, I know, how did I find out? I feel like nowadays, maybe they might tighten up. Yeah, maybe not. That's really sweet. And we'll be right back. In the late 90s and early 2000s, Asian women were often reduced to overtly sexual and submissive caricatures.

The geishas of the book turned film memoirs of a geisha, the lewd twins in Austin Powers, and pinup goddess Sung He Li. Meanwhile, the girls next door were always white. Within that narrow framework, Kyla Yu internalized a painful conclusion. conclusion. The only way someone who looked like her could have value or be considered beautiful and desirable was to sexualize herself. In her new book, Fetishized, a reckoning with yellow fever, feminism, and beauty, Kyla You reckons with being an object of Asian fetishism and how media, pop culture, and colonialism contribute to the over-sexualization of Asian women. Blending vulnerable stories from Yu's life with incisive cultural critique and history.

Fetishized is a memoir and essays exploring feminism, beauty, yellow fever, and the roles pop culture and colonialism played in shaping pervasive and destructive stereotypes about Asian women and their bodies. She recounts altering her body to conform to Western beauty standards, being treated by men like a sex object, and the emotional toll and trauma of losing her sense of self in the pursuit of the image she thought the world wanted. If you're a fan of books about Asian American identity like crying and age smart or coming of age stories like somebody's daughter, be sure to pick up fetishized available wherever books are sold. Fall is in full swing and it's the perfect time to refresh your wardrobe with pieces

that feel as good as they look. Luckily, Quince makes it easy to look polished, stay warm and save big without compromising on quality. Quince has all the elevated essentials for fall. Think 100% Mongolian cashmere from $50. That's right, $50, washable silk tops and skirts, and perfectly tailored denim, all at prices that feel too good to be true. I am currently eyeing their silk miniskirt. I have been dying for a silk miniskirt. I've been looking everywhere at thrift stores, just like all over town. But I just saw that Quince has one on their website. It is exactly what I've been looking for. So I'm just going to click, put that in my cart. By partnering directly with ethical top tier factories, Quince cuts out the middlemen to deliver luxury quality pieces at

half the price of similar brands. It's the kind of wardrobe upgrade that feels smart, stylish, and effortless. Keep it classic and cozy this fall with long-lasting staples from Quince. Go to quince.com slash podcrushed for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-C-E.com slash podcrushed to get free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash podcrushed. okay i do want to ask you kevin about i have to the six degrees of kevin bacon phenomenon how does it feel to you are you tired of talking about it and where did it come from where did it come from and has there ever have you ever known of an actor who's fallen outside of it

okay uh to start with your last question no wow there's literally i can guarantee you that's amazing um but the uh it was in the in the 90s and there were three guys college guys or three or four guys from albright university in pennsylvania and unbeknownst to me they sort of came up with this idea that i could be connected to any actor in the acting universe by six degrees or less so in other words if i was in one movie then that person was in somebody else another movie and then we were all acting in this acting universe I kind of heard about it

from Howard Stern somebody told me that Howard had been talking about it then I went on to the John Stewart John Stewart had like a nighttime talk show at the time and he had the guys he brought those guys on as guests people would come up to me and say I'm hung over because I was playing your game

other people would say to me oh my cousin invented that game about you whatever it happened to be it was used as drinking games on college campuses all this kind of stuff and this is all viral wasn't even

yeah it's like organic yeah this is like organic viral right yeah so there was nothing to share it with there was nothing and uh you know I was horrified honestly because because I thought

that you know and this is my own acting you know insecurity imposter syndrome I thought that the joke of it was that the great actors could be connected to a loser actor like this

in other words me I'm a loser actor and the greats I mean you know they were like I was thinking you know they're saying well can you believe he can be connected by Meryl Streep by the way I think I'd already worked with Meryl Streep so so it wasn't even like it's just in my own head and again it's that thing of you know when I began

came for that moment after the F movie when I became a pop star the last thing I wanted to be was a pop star I had already moved into you know I want to be you know Dustin Hoffman or Merrill or

John Casal or you know De Niro I want to work with Scorsese I want to do checkoff I want to you know I mean I was like like so into what what my idea of a serious actor was And all of a sudden I was given this thing that was like completely not a serious actor. So I rejected it like full on and really I think in some ways sort of tried this kind of self-sabotage least that piece of myself and my popularity.

I was very, very uncomfortable with, you know, photo shoots and magazines and all these things that I had dreamed of as a kid. You know, everything that I had dreamed of gave me a tremendous amount of sort of self-doubt, but also like anxiety and whatever. So when somebody was doing a pop culture game about you, you know, I really was horrified by it. But I eventually learned to embrace it and I realized that it wasn't really going away. For a while, there was a couple of attempts to monetize it with an actual board game or a book, none of which sold. I couldn't make a dime off of it.

And the reason was that it's just a, it's not a thing. It's nothing you can hold. It's not a bottle of tequila or a, you know, a pair of socks or a, you know, a clothing line or makeup or whatever. It's just an idea. So I started to think about at one point starting a foundation when I was kind of moving out of just being focused on KB and starting to think a little bit more about the rest of the world.

And 6Degrees.org seemed like the best thing from a branding standpoint, you know. And when you take me out of it, I believe, and I think Penn and I've probably talked about this, I just think it's a beautiful concept, 6 degrees, because it really is, if there's no Kevin Bacon involved, And it really is about the connectivity of people, the connectivity of us all riding this same, you know,

ball, this planet, you know, being stewards of that. And of the actions and the things that we do having effect on everyone else. And the fact that we all climbed down to the same swamp. So, you know, I mean, I'm, I'm now really very happy, and feel really good about just the idea of 6 degrees and I've learned to, you know, embrace it. And when the oceans rise 6 degrees in temperature,

you'll also have a whole new branding opportunity. It'll be reborn, you'll have a whole new dimension. You know what? It's funny you say that because Kira, who was an avid environmentalist from the time I met her when she was 21, she was talking about, you know... The 2 degrees or the 4 degrees? Yeah, yeah.

we actually did a campaign where we're sitting there, you know, naked from the waist up and sweating and talking about six degrees and talking about climate change. Yeah, it was probably, I don't know, 25 years ago or something like that. Oh, so it's an old joke. Yeah, you really. Yeah. That's an old joke. Kevin, you also have a podcast coming out with, does it also use that name? Do you want to tell us about sort of the mission of the podcast, where people can check it out, when it'll be out?

When my episode's coming out. Yeah, exactly. He's saving yours for a holiday episode. Yeah, it's slowly Thanksgiving. It's like, it's either a rerun or it's a ton of episodes. Not at all. It's an excellent episode. You know, I wanted to figure out a way, we've had the foundation, 6 Degrees Dog or Doordover.

We've done all kinds of different things, drop-ins. A lot of it has had to do with highlighting, people who are doing good work on the ground that aren't necessarily being recognized for that. That's number one. Number two, also the fact that celebrities, well-known people, people who's, you know, movies, television shows, music, sports, whatever, reality TV, that you appreciate, they don't just sit in ivory towers and make a whole boat a lot of money. sometimes they have things that they care very deeply about like Penn. And so it was an opportunity to do part of the show to just kind of shoot the breeze. A lot of these episodes or I guess pretty much all of them we recorded before the strikes

that we're able to talk about work, talk about our connections, talk about, you know, get into more kind of specific stuff and stories and anecdotal things that we can't necessarily do here. And also just kind of get to note. Some people are actually friends of mine because I know them or work with them. Some people I get to, you know, me like Penn. And then not only do they get to talk about the causes that they care about, they also get to introduce whoever it is that is involved and doing the boots on the ground for the actual cause that they are involved in.

And this gives a voice to people that really don't often get the microphone in front of them. and I'm fascinated both by what drives somebody who is rich and famous and doesn't need to do any of this but also what makes someone choose a life that's so different than what I chose. You know, I chose a life to be self-involved and self-promotional and to, you know, get, you know, whatever, singing. Other people choose a life to do good. I feel like this is maybe a nice segue into our last question. Yeah. I mean, I think we've had a really nice run here.

Thank you, Kevin. Yeah. Yeah. No, thank you guys. If you could go back to that 12-year-old, is there anything you would say or do? I would say, don't be afraid to ask for or take advice. you know, I did not ever either want or get

I mean I might have gotten but if it came I wasn't interested in hearing it advice and because I thought you know when I was 12 when I was 15 when I was 17 when I was you know 20 that I knew everything you know

about how to act about girls, about the world, about career, about the business, you know, even when it came to like agents, managers, it was, I was like, I don't want to, I don't want to know from anything. So I think that's not a good way to approach life. you know people there are people that have wisdom yeah you know experience um knowledge so how would you talk to uh 12 year old kevin and not have him tell you to fuck off he i wouldn't he would he definitely would and and i don't know how i don't know how i would

talk to him. No, I don't know. He could be cause I, yeah, I think he would, but that's just who I was. That's who I was. So then I'm going to, as graciously as I can, press you for one word of advice, which you will not

give the world. You have been married for 35 years, you acknowledge yourself how difficult it is, yet you refuse to give advice and relinquish any wisdom. Is Will that change today? No. I mean, I'm listening, here's my, yeah, I don't know.

You know what I mean? I'll tell you, here's my, there's a song that I wrote, thank you very much. Is it for Michael Jackson? No, no, this was for the Bacon Brothers. There's a song called Play, and it was kind of an answer to that question. and the reason that it's an answer to is because everyone always says, you know, marriage is a lot of work. You know, you really got to work at it.

It's a daily, and when I hear that, I go, it's really about play. Oh, I love it. That was perfect. We got it. We did it. We got him to do it. I go into a little bit more detail in the song. Kevin, can we play from the song in this episode?

This has all been, this has all been like a long-term ad campaign for this song. There you go. We're going to close the episode out with this song. And here it is. Played by the Biggie Brothers. You've got to. Hey with your lover. When you're undercover.

If you want to get to it just to it don't do it halfway. You can follow Kevin Bacon's philanthropic efforts at 6Degrees.org. And you can follow him personally at Kevin Bacon. Penn, there's an indie artist called Matt Warts who has a song called Making Easy Things Hard. And I feel like your song would be like, making short things long. I like that.

Stitcher.