PF: How do you make a character like this in Mystic River interesting? Even the novelist said he was boring.

KB: That's funny. I can't believe he thought the character was boring. Look, I mean, the thing about that character is that he's not a guy that talks about his feelings too much, so what you have to try to do is have the feeling be there underneath and between the words. Really, most of the talking that I do in the film is about the case. It's about me and Fishburne are kind of like the guide for the audience in terms of what's going on and who the suspect is and what's happening. But at the same time, I think he's got a tremendous amount of sadness and his life is falling apart basically. He's living alone and kind of living like an island.

PF: Is there a Kevin Bacon typecast?

KB: I mean, that's what I've been trying to fight my whole life. It's difficult but this week I have Mystic River and In the Cut. I've got a small part in In the Cut and it's pretty different than Mystic River. I just try to do something different.

PF: Do uncredited cameos help?

KB: It helps. To me, the way you get not typecast is if you don't do movies based on the size of the role or the size of the budget.

PF: Why uncredited?

KB: I kind of felt like this is a movie that's about Meg Ryan and Mark Ruffalo. I kind of felt like that's the way the film should be marketed. What would happen- - let's say I only have three scenes in the movie. What if one of them was taken out? Or two of them were taken out? Then all of a sudden it's Meg Ryan, Mark Ruffalo and Kevin Bacon. I'm going to look like an asshole. So I wanted to protect myself. As it is, there was a scene that was taken out.

PF: Has the typecast changed since the '80s?

KB: Well, in the '80s- - look, whatever you've just done and if it was successful, that's what people want you to do every time from that time out. So after Diner, although the movie wasn't hugely successful, it was the most successful thing that I'd been in to date, I was seen as the drunken friend, so I'd get scripts and it was like the drunken friend. Footloose, it was teen get the girl and whatever thing.

PF: Can you compare Campion and Eastwood for us?

KB: It's really different. Jane really wants to talk a lot about character. We had very, very long talks and she talks a lot about what's about to happen. She's very poetic and she's very philosophical and she's got a real- - she's like an artist. You see that movie is kind of like a painting in a way. Every shot is painted. And Clint, the only thing he ever told me was to talk faster.

PF: Is that seriously it?

KB: No, that's about it. One time I asked him, when we get to the end, what am I supposed to be playing there? He said, "That's for the audience to decide." And I said, "Okay, great." And you know what? It's better for me. Not that Jane's not a great director and I had fun working on that film. But, what you see in that movie is the character that I brought, that guy. I brought him ready to go, ready to play. That's what I do. I go, I read the script, and I go away. If I have questions, I'll ask, but then I do my work. I do it on my own and I'll bring it. I'm ready to go. If you don't have it in 10 takes, you're not going to have it. My best shit is going to be in the first three takes almost inevitably.

PF: Do fans come up with really weird trivia?

KB: Well, sometimes what happens is they come up and they say things, like lines from movies and I have no idea what they're talking about. Someone will come up and say some line as though- - I don't look at the movies. I see the movie for the premiere or whatever, and then I don't see it.

PF: Do you get annoyed by the six degrees bit?

KB: No, that's fine.

PF: Has the status of your career changed much since Stir of Echoes?

KB: Nah, not really.

PF: So that film didn't help you get more roles?

KB: I don't know. I don't think it seems like it's all that much different than it was. But this is a movie that I'm so proud to be in. I waited so long. I mean, I heard about the movie and it was kind of on the wind that maybe Clint was thinking about me for something down the line, not even necessarily this movie, but just something someday. And that was probably like three years ago. I knew that Mystic River was kind of on his radar even before he started shooting Blood Work. So that was a long wait for the phone call, but when it came, it was pretty sweet.

PF: Would you do a cameo in the footloose remake?

KB: I don't know. I think it'd have to be a pretty big price tag.

PF: Do you still dance?

KB: No.

PF: What about that bit on Will and Grace?

KB: I did. That's right, I did a little dancing on Will and Grace.

PF: Will you talk about the silent phone calls?

KB: I only asked Clint for one thing when I read the script, and that was another phone call. There were only two and I believe now there are three. I called him up. I said, "I'm not going to ask you for a lot, but is there any way you could see your way clear to putting another phone call in." He said, "Okay." Got another draft of the script and there it was.

PF: Why did you want that?

KB: Because I felt like it's a little bit of a window into what's going on with the guy. And I think it was important- - obviously, Jimmy's character, it's very clear what's happening with him. It's very clear what's happening with Dave, emotionally. And I just wanted to be able to make it a little clearer that Sean's life is falling apart.

PF: If The Bacon Brothers hit big, would you balance acting?

KB: It's hard. But I love it, so we're just going to keep going on the way we are.

PF: Do you have ambitions to be mainstream, or are you happy on the club circuit?

KB: I'm happy on the circuit it is, but by the same token, you always wish that you could get some radio play. It's like anything else you do. You do it so that people will hear it. So it would be great to have it take off a little bit, but that's not- - I don't consume myself with that much. I try to bring up the level of the playing in the band, I try to keep bringing up the level of the singing and the song writing and just doing it like that.

PF: Is music an extension of acting?

KB: Well, you know, I was actually a songwriter before I even took my first acting class. Music is just something that's kind of inside me. I can say that my best performances of a song, whether it be in a studio or live are those performances when I feel connected to them as an actor emotionally. I remember what the story is that I'm trying to tell. You play a song again and again and again, it's sort of like theatre. You get to that point where you're just kind of doing it by rote. You have a night where you go, "Oh, shit, it's a Tuesday night. I'll just walk through this." It's the same thing with song and you have to get back to what it was that you wrote it about and what it is you're trying to talk about, so they are connected in that way.

PF: Tell us about working with Larry Fishburne?

KB: Fish is the best. I mean, we had a blast. We had so much fun hanging out, so much fun playing those scenes and we drove them all the time and it was great.

PF: What are you working on next?

KB: I'm going to start directing a picture called Loverboy that Kyra and I optioned a couple years ago. I'm going to start shooting in two weeks.

Mystic River opens in limited release on Wednesday, October 8.