Kevin Bacon and Wife Kyra Sedgwick Enjoy Date Night at Premiere of His Horror Film They/Them
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Amanda Edwards/WireImage Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon
It was movie night for Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick!
The couple, who wed back in 1988, stepped out Sunday night for the world premiere of Bacon's new horror flick They/Them, held at the 2022 Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ+ Film Festival.
Sedgwick, 56, smiled with Bacon, 64, and rested her head on his shoulder on the red carpet as she supported her husband's movie launch.
At the premiere, Bacon chatted with PEOPLE about his sinister character in the film, in which he plays the leader of a "conversion therapy" camp that preys upon LGBTQ+ youth.
In crafting his villain, Bacon says it was fun "to go against the idea that he's a cookie-cutter evil bad guy, to try to make his arguments as logical and as seductive as possible."
"It was something we talked about a lot and I really enjoy doing," he adds.
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Bacon also praises director John Logan and the "brilliant" idea of incorporating relevant social commentary into contemporary horror fare: "He told me he wrote this because he was horrified by the idea that gay conversion is still something that's going on in this country."
"He wanted to make a movie about this horrendous practice but didn't want to make something that was going to be easily dismissible or that nobody would want to see," Bacon adds. "Horror always has the potential of finding a wide audience, so he took the horrors of that concept and set it in a framework of a '70s slasher movie."
"I felt that was really a brilliant idea," the actor says.
The movie (playing on the genre with its "They Slash Them" title pronunciation) also stars Carrie Preston, Anna Chlumsky, Theo Germaine, Austin Crute, Monique Kim, Anna Lore, Cooper Koch and Darwin del Fabro.
For Bacon, witnessing the young cast of diverse actors brought together for the film was a major takeaway from the experience.
"My favorite memory was walking out the very first scene; I'm coming out of the lodge and I stand there and I start to address all these young people," he says. "And I looked across at the cast that had been assembled, of really inspirationally, great actors, but also people of all different gender and sexual identities, and they were there to join this project and to represent."
Bacon adds, "I felt very moved by that, to be part of that."
They/Them debuts on Peacock Aug. 5.
