There are family projects, and then there Family movie – An independent film directed by married actors and directors Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, starring both of them as well as their children Travis and Susie Bacon. The plot itself concerns a family of artists who make an elaborate film on a very limited budget, just as the story goes behind the scenes. Of course things are a little different than that: Family movie It features plenty of murders, blood spatter, crazy stunts and outrageous comedy. Sidgwick and Bacon can affirm that this part, at least, remains constant in the world of fiction.
The horror-comedy will premiere tonight at SXSW, the culmination of these industry veterans on a years-long journey to release their own funny and hilarious film. Their companies ranged from Shaun of the Dead to Cocaine bearAnd watch Family movietheir love and understanding of this kind of silly, creepy tone reveals itself immediately.
Via Zoom, Sedgwick and Bacon joined Hollywood Reporter During a break from the final stages of post-production, which sees Travis’ music played into the final mix and the rest of the audio work being completed. “I’m very excited,” Sedgwick says from his office conference room. “This is really interesting for us,” Bacon nodded beside her.
How do you describe this experience, from the beginning of the idea until now? You’ve worked together in different iterations before, but making a film together from start to finish is hard work in itself.
Kevin Bacon It was magical.
Kyra Sedgwick Sublime. It was always easy, but it was shockingly good. The whole time we were shooting, we kept saying, “Oh my God, this is so great. This is so great.” When we were in the prep phase and once we were all together on set, it was even better than I could have imagined.
bacon We really love what we do. I know Keira is never as happy as she is when she’s directing, and I absolutely love acting and I absolutely love directing. Usually we would go out and work and then come home. We’d say, “The coolest thing happened today,” and she’d talk about what the process was. Sometimes it was a nightmare, but every so often there was a really fun moment. All the moments we shared – all the good moments, all the bad moments, all the exciting moments – are truly wonderful and extraordinary, and then we share them with the children as well.
Sedgwick I admire them very much. I really admire my family of artists, and I’ve been able to see different sides. I’ve seen Kevin on set – I’ve seen the way he acts on set, but watching kids and the way they act as human beings and colleagues and performers? It’s very rare, as a parent especially of an adult child, that you get to watch them out in the world and how they act around others. They behaved well! Anyway, I can’t stop smiling about it. We’ve created something we’re proud of above all else – it’s the icing on the cake.
You’re a family making a movie about a family making a movie — which, in the last case, goes horribly wrong. Where did the idea come from?
bacon We were on our farm in Connecticut during the lockdown, we had just gotten back from LA and the kids were out in LA and we didn’t really know when we were going to go back to work. So we took our iPhones and shot a movie. She shot me, I shot her, we wrote it, we directed it. We got ladders, duct tape, and a couple of junk lights from Amazon. It was that kind of thing. It was a sad, ghost story-type thing, but we loved doing it and then we thought, “What if we could make a movie together as a family?” We didn’t really think the kids would be frustrated by this; We called them and they were like “sure.”
Sedgwick We met with the writers…and decided to go with Dan [Beers]. Since we did it all in-house, in the initial development, he spoke to all of us separately on Zoom, so he got some inside knowledge of the family. There are meta things going on for sure. My desire to hurt people who hurt my family is overwhelming.
You’ve made a film in many ways about the challenges of independent films at the moment, while obviously making one yourselves – was it difficult? How was the funding raised?
Sedgwick It took a long time. Four years, maybe.
bacon We’re in a business that is a land of endless “no”s, and that’s exactly what it was. It’s a classic situation, especially when you consider our delusions of grandeur. When we thought about how much money we would need to make this happen, we didn’t even think about a big chunk of money. We were thinking about a very small piece of money, and the piece of money got smaller and smaller and smaller, and everyone said, no. I mean, listen, everyone said no, even…
Sedgwick — Yes, then yes, then we put it together and got a great crew that was willing to go above and beyond as one does. What was hard for me as a parent was having to call the kids and say, “We caught a pass from all these people we admire, all these companies we admire.” You know: “They pass, they pass, they pass.” The work begins with your trust and belief in the project, as we all know.
I also felt very afraid and protective of the family. The place is still very vulnerable. We’ll go out there and say, “Hey, this is the person I love most in the world, so here you go, take your picture.” (He points to Bacon) If it’s in a movie or it’s me, we support each other through the tough times. The worry about hurting the family came early in the process because we got a lot of rejections — because a person gets a lot of rejections. It always happens.
bacon We have very thick skins. Our children may know: our son is a musician, and our daughter is an actress. They have faced this many times even in their short lives.
Kyra, without spoiling anything, this sounds like a really fun part for you – while also directing.
Sedgwick It’s a great part and I know that, so there were times when I was like, “I have to take off my directorial hat.” It’s a great character, and it’s hard to get it right. It’s like a needle and thread, but I think I like that she’s fictionally schizophrenic. I just love that she is the sweetest, warmest matriarch you could ever want in the world and also a fierce warrior for her family. I kind of can relate. It was a lot of fun, very straight comedy – which is something I don’t get to do very often. I’ve really gotten to use a lot of my tools.
What was something that felt particularly memorable about filming for you both?
Sedgwick I loved doing the intro scene – that long scene. It was very cool and very exciting. We are fans of films like Babylon and Player And others that showcase the films being made and give people a glimpse of what it’s really like.
bacon I love, as you can imagine, trying to put together a puzzle of blood and stuff and all that stuff. I’m totally into those things. It’s been a lot of fun trying to figure out what’s going to be practical, and how we’re going to pair influencers with real actors. For one of the big scenes, we only had one day, and it was very complicated to shoot the scene. This is my happy place.
How did you actually work together? What is assignment assignment? Did you always agree?
bacon Our approach is based on many years of working on sets and filmmaking in a practical sense. Even before we started getting paid, we talked a lot about the ways we shoot things — we started blocking in very small figures, and we went to a hobby store and bought all these little figures and started setting up shots. We would rehearse stunts in the living room, fly around and talk about how things could be done. We talked about casting, watching other films, thinking about compositions, all that stuff.
Sedgwick There were a few times we didn’t get along and then he found out I was on the same page I have the right. (He laughs.) Logistically, when I wasn’t in scenes, fortunately I didn’t have to delve into hair and makeup, and I could just come to the shoot while he was getting ready and starting to work and setting up shots and vice versa. And that’s really what happened. Looking at the playback, when we were in one of the scenes, actually, we asked Susie to come shoot – during that big barn scene, we just asked her to direct us.
We see things more or less similarly and we gravitate toward the same kind of things, whether it’s in our feelings about acting or our feelings about directing or our feelings about photography. Our desire for every scene is for it to tell a story, for it to be propulsive, for it to be funny, and all those things when it should be — and then we stop and get really real in those family scenes. We made sure to make all those decisions before we got on set because you’re running around shooting like crazy for 25 days, which is actually more than you spend on a lot of things, but we had stunts and storms and animals.
True, there are a lot of ingredients here. You mentioned the faith you felt in the project when you were getting those rejections. How did you watch this film while it was being developed and trying to sell it?
bacon The movie ends up being more entertaining than horrific. We really wanted it to have as much heart as possible and be a love letter to both horror and independent filmmaking. Often people don’t think we are independent. We’re not like independent film fans, so to speak, and that’s probably because none of us have ever had an independent film that was a big hit. But we did a lot of independent stuff and we continue to do that. Keira was talking about the 21 day schedule in her last film. And we love it. We love this world, so this is kind of a tribute to that.
