Speaker 1: Okay, Well, today's episode is special. This is a person
Speaker 1: that I have never done a podcast with before. I'm
Speaker 1: not even sure that I've ever interviewed this person except
Speaker 1: maybe at breakfast about how she slept. This is my
Speaker 1: wife of thirty five years, the fabulous director, producer, an
Speaker 1: award winning actress, my all around favorite person, Kira Sedgwick.
Speaker 1: And to make it even more special, we have Stacy Houston,
Speaker 1: who runs our foundation six degrees dot org. So this
Speaker 1: is a very personal episode for me, and there are
Speaker 1: two people that I'm very very close to, and I
Speaker 1: think we're gonna have a lot of fun. So lean in.
Speaker 1: It's a good one. Okay, here I am. This is
Speaker 1: very very special edition of six Degrees with Kevin Bacon
Speaker 1: because it's a six Degrees with Kevin Bacon and Curra Cedwric. Hi,
Speaker 1: how are you doing?
Speaker 2: I'm good?
Speaker 1: How are you goodhead? You look amazing? Thank you who
Speaker 1: set up your lighting?
Speaker 2: Kevin Bacon?
Speaker 1: Well, So, for people that don't know this, what's one
Speaker 1: of our least favorite things to do?
Speaker 3: What is one of our least favorite things to do? Oh?
Speaker 3: I'm going it's a little very comersed and talk about ourselves.
Speaker 1: Interviews about ourselves in our marriage.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, for sure. Oh yeah, that's right. The question
Speaker 3: what's the secret to a happy marriage?
Speaker 1: What's a secret to a happy marriage?
Speaker 2: Kurra, that old chestnut.
Speaker 3: The secret to a happy marriage is not to take
Speaker 3: advice from celebrities about the secret to a happy marriage.
Speaker 1: Tell me how did you first? You two first meet?
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, what's heard it all before?
Speaker 1: Kevin? What's your favorite Kia Sedgwick movie? And Kurra, what's
Speaker 1: your favorite Kevin Bacon. I mean, it's just so it's
Speaker 1: so hard. I was just on with uh with with
Speaker 1: Seth and Lauren Rogan, who are married couple. They are
Speaker 1: first you know, married couple to be on the six Degrees.
Speaker 1: Although this might air before it, but they seemed totally comfortable,
Speaker 1: you know, being and doing things together. I think I
Speaker 1: think we just have a certain kind of I mean,
Speaker 1: we've gotten better at it over the years, but we've
Speaker 1: always avoided it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think, I don't know, it just
Speaker 3: feels really revealing to talk too much about, and also
Speaker 3: it somehow makes it I don't know, I always feel
Speaker 3: like it sounds like, you know, showing off or it's
Speaker 3: really easy or you know, coming off like it's too
Speaker 3: easy and stuff like that, and it's like, I just
Speaker 3: don't want to come off like that. Plus it's ours,
Speaker 3: And the more that we talk about it press, the
Speaker 3: less it feels like it's ours, it's everybody that it
Speaker 3: becomes everybody else's.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that's a really good point. I feel the
Speaker 1: same way about those two points. I mean, I also
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, I don't want to be the
Speaker 1: guy that is supposed to give somebody advice right on
Speaker 1: how to stay married that that I don't I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just I don't know. And and and the other
Speaker 1: thing that makes me nuts about it makes me nuts
Speaker 1: about press in general. But is that you know, when
Speaker 1: was the last time you read like a full profile
Speaker 1: of anyone or a full interview with anyone. Everything gets
Speaker 1: homogenized down to a single.
Speaker 2: Sound bite line sound bite totally.
Speaker 1: And or headline or whatever. And it when you're talking
Speaker 1: about thirty five years of marriage, that that just becomes
Speaker 1: just silly, you know, it's it's just it's disrespectful. How
Speaker 1: are you these days, my love? What's what's h How
Speaker 1: are you feeling about life and about the world that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh my god, do you want to make me cry.
Speaker 3: Is that what you want to do is to make
Speaker 3: me cry.
Speaker 1: I never want to make you cry. I never want
Speaker 1: to make you cry.
Speaker 3: I mean I'm feeling I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed, to be
Speaker 3: perfectly honest with you, with the state of the world.
Speaker 3: And today we you know, heard about two shootings and
Speaker 3: it just feels pretty overwhelming, and it just feels like
Speaker 3: the world is in such a mess.
Speaker 2: How could we possibly fix it?
Speaker 3: And I know that the antidote to feeling helpless and
Speaker 3: helpless is to get into action. So, you know, I
Speaker 3: posted something on my Instagram from every town about you know,
Speaker 3: about gun violence, and I am talking to you today
Speaker 3: and I do what I can every day to make
Speaker 3: me feel like I'm part of a solution and not
Speaker 3: part of the problem.
Speaker 1: So when did you first start to feel like you
Speaker 1: were like that was going to be a part of it.
Speaker 1: That no, not that part of it. When did you
Speaker 1: first start to feel like you were part of the
Speaker 1: solution rather than part of the problem. Because I feel like, well,
Speaker 1: we met when you were twenty one, I think it,
Speaker 1: and you already at twenty one had a pretty big,
Speaker 1: complicated worldview. Yeah, I think so is it, Yeah, I think.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know that, I know that having the
Speaker 1: kids would definitely kind of send it home. But I
Speaker 1: remember you definitely feeling like much more so than me,
Speaker 1: thinking about about just causes and things that were going
Speaker 1: on in the world. I mean, where do you think
Speaker 1: that comes from.
Speaker 3: I think it's an extension, an extension of an empathy
Speaker 3: gene that might be dialed up to eleven, you know.
Speaker 3: But I'm happy for it, grateful for it. I mean,
Speaker 3: I think that's what drew me to being an actor,
Speaker 3: is compassion for other people and people in difficult circumstances.
Speaker 3: And then also this like really fierce feeling of really
Speaker 3: like black and white thinking around right and wrong, you know,
Speaker 3: things that were fair and unfair and so much inequality
Speaker 3: and so many things that were so unfair. And it's
Speaker 3: a sort of childlike rage that I can get into.
Speaker 2: Like I can't believe it's so unfair, you.
Speaker 3: Know, and it's and I'm happy for it, even though
Speaker 3: it causes me some it causes me a lot of
Speaker 3: despair sometimes, but I'm happy for it because I think
Speaker 3: it helps me as an actor and as a director.
Speaker 3: But I also think it helps me as a civilian
Speaker 3: you know, to feel responsible for the world I live
Speaker 3: in and to think that in some ways I can
Speaker 3: affect change, and change doesn't always have to be huge.
Speaker 3: It can also be small, little incremental things. And that's
Speaker 3: sort of the bigger picture of my activism is this
Speaker 3: idea of grassroots you know that really like it has
Speaker 3: to be from the grassroots up. It has to be
Speaker 3: little things, knocking on doors, you know, giving someone pulling
Speaker 3: someone up, you know, reaching your hand down and pulling
Speaker 3: someone up. Like very it can be small and they
Speaker 3: have a bigger effect on people because I feel like
Speaker 3: it's like this great snowball effect that can happen. But
Speaker 3: I think it really comes from just this very childlike
Speaker 3: feeling of like they are just things that are fair,
Speaker 3: and just things that are just blatantly unfair. There may
Speaker 3: be nuance. As a grown up, I can embrace the
Speaker 3: nuance a little bit, but there's also some things that
Speaker 3: are really clearly fair and unfair.
Speaker 1: I feel like, correct me if I'm wrong that that
Speaker 1: was very much. When I hear you say that, I
Speaker 1: hear your father's voice. Yeah, is that true?
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. My dad was into politics for a little
Speaker 3: while on the local level in New York. And yeah,
Speaker 3: he definitely, he was very passionate. He would get very
Speaker 3: passionate about things. Oh my god, I shudder to think
Speaker 3: what you would think now, but if you were alive.
Speaker 2: But yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I remember when the kids were born, which was
Speaker 1: about eighty nine.
Speaker 2: Trap was born or some eighty nine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, eighty nine, Travis was born. Pretty much right away
Speaker 1: you started to get involved with activism around climate change,
Speaker 1: which was then called global warming. And it was, when
Speaker 1: you really think about it, a lot of people really
Speaker 1: had no idea. Either they had no idea what you
Speaker 1: were talking about, or they completely dismissed it as you know,
Speaker 1: some kind of like crazy, you know, the lunatic theory
Speaker 1: from on the edge or something that was never going
Speaker 1: to happen in our life lifetime. And here we are seeing, how,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, not prophetic. I wouldn't say you
Speaker 1: were prophetic. You were just smart about it and you
Speaker 1: actually believe the science. And I thought that it's really
Speaker 1: amazing to think back that that you were such a
Speaker 1: on the forefront of that thought.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think it's really you know, I
Speaker 3: always think about it as like it was kind of
Speaker 3: a selfish thing. I started to think about the future
Speaker 3: for my kid, and I started to think, you know,
Speaker 3: what do we have here on the horizon? And I
Speaker 3: think it's sort of a mom's job, a parent's job,
Speaker 3: but more of a mom thing maybe of like where's
Speaker 3: the danger and how can I prevent it from happening
Speaker 3: to my child? And I think that, you know, it
Speaker 3: just was something that was in the zeitgeist if you
Speaker 3: were listening in eighty eight, you know, in eighty eight,
Speaker 3: in eighty nine. I remember specifically, it was a very
Speaker 3: hot summer in eighty eight, and people were like, what's happening?
Speaker 3: And then there was a lot of information that was
Speaker 3: coming out, and I just was like voraciously reading up
Speaker 3: on everything I possibly could and going in and speaking
Speaker 3: to scientists and getting clear and educated about what was
Speaker 3: happening and the causes of it, you know, And I
Speaker 3: think that, you know, no one really wanted to say. Still,
Speaker 3: no one wants to say, because of because of the
Speaker 3: power of the of the oil and gas companies, that
Speaker 3: that it is the burning of fossil fuels.
Speaker 2: It is the burning.
Speaker 3: Of gas and oil that is that is the it
Speaker 3: is the reason why we are where we are. And
Speaker 3: there's no two ways about it. And it used to
Speaker 3: be that we would, you know, try to say all
Speaker 3: sorts of euphemisms, like, you know, it's one of the causes,
Speaker 3: but it's not.
Speaker 2: It's the cause.
Speaker 3: You can talk about other things that contribute to it,
Speaker 3: but it is the number one cause. And I think
Speaker 3: that I also think that plastic was something that I was,
Speaker 3: you know, really understanding, was is a petro chemical?
Speaker 2: Is a petroleum product.
Speaker 3: I realized that I knew, I understood that plastic is
Speaker 3: a petroleum product very early on, and try to you know,
Speaker 3: diminish our use of plastics around the kids entirely as
Speaker 3: much as we possibly could.
Speaker 1: So hard with kids to write, everything they touch, everything
Speaker 1: they use, is plastic. It's just you're just inundated with plastic.
Speaker 1: I remember when when our son was born, we decided
Speaker 1: that we were going to use disposable diapers, and we
Speaker 1: were complete vagabods. We were living out of suitcases with
Speaker 1: this brand new baby and going from town to town
Speaker 1: making movies and The Curious Movies and My movies. And
Speaker 1: we'd come to a town, you know, in the middle
Speaker 1: of nowhere and have to set up a diaper service,
Speaker 1: and people look, are you out of your mind? Why
Speaker 1: would you have a diaper service when you can just
Speaker 1: you know, go right down to the store and buy
Speaker 1: a nice giant box of plastics, dis multiple diapers and
Speaker 1: make your life easy. But you were you were so
Speaker 1: adamant that that that we not do that, and uh,
Speaker 1: and you know, I just have to say, it was
Speaker 1: it was, it was just it was. It's just always
Speaker 1: I'm just always impressed with with with you around around
Speaker 1: those things. You know, you really you really do walk
Speaker 1: the walk.
Speaker 3: Thank you, honey.
Speaker 1: You know you mentioned uh being an actor and being
Speaker 1: a director, and I wonder, uh, which is it? Is
Speaker 1: a chicken in the egg thing? Is? Is is your
Speaker 1: compassion for the world, for the planet, for other people? Uh?
Speaker 1: Sort of a result of the emotional kind of work
Speaker 1: that you that you've chosen being an artist like this,
Speaker 1: or has it has that influenced the choices that you
Speaker 1: make and the kinds of uh the films that you
Speaker 1: want to direct or the kinds of parts that you
Speaker 1: want to play. I mean, which came first?
Speaker 3: Gosh, I mean I think it's kind of both. I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm sure that I was an empathetic creature way before
Speaker 3: I thought about you know, acting. But then then once
Speaker 3: I started acting, the first thing I did was you know,
Speaker 3: Tidle and Fiddler on the Roof and and you know,
Speaker 3: I remember just feeling like I've been through the pogrums
Speaker 3: and you know this has actually happened to me, you know, and.
Speaker 1: You take it very personally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it felt good to make that my story
Speaker 3: for a little while, you know what I mean, It
Speaker 3: felt good to walk around in other people's shoes and
Speaker 3: to you know, feel their big feeling. So so I
Speaker 3: think that probably you know, my empathetic, you know nature,
Speaker 3: my my you know, I it's not it's not always
Speaker 3: a great thing. Like I find myself a little bit
Speaker 3: like invasions, invasion of the body snatchers, or I kind
Speaker 3: of leave my body and go into other people's bodies
Speaker 3: and feel their feelings.
Speaker 1: But you think that's a bad thing. Why would that?
Speaker 3: Well, because I think that it's a lot of it's
Speaker 3: a lot of I think it's just makes life a
Speaker 3: little bit harder if you're if you're taking other people's
Speaker 3: feelings on a lot, and when they're not asking you to,
Speaker 3: when you're not getting paid for it. You know, No,
Speaker 3: I think it can be irritating. I could point out
Speaker 3: a couple of ways in which it's irritating and you'll go, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: I know exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: I mean, do you mean to other people or it's
Speaker 1: hard hard on you.
Speaker 3: I think it's hard on me. I think it's an
Speaker 3: added bird burden on me. Like she's really upset, Like
Speaker 3: there's one person in this party that's upset and I
Speaker 3: can tell, and it's, you know, making it impossible for
Speaker 3: me to have a good time at this party. Plus
Speaker 3: I want to be annoying and keep going up to
Speaker 3: her and going, are you okay? You okay, okay? And
Speaker 3: that's annoying too, right, so right, right, yeah.
Speaker 2: But then I think that, like what, it's.
Speaker 1: A great quality I have as an actor.
Speaker 2: Obviously, yeah it is.
Speaker 3: It is a great quality. It's just dialed up to eleven.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's a little bit much. But I think that definitely.
Speaker 3: You know, especially the things that I've picked as an actor,
Speaker 3: they have to have meaning for me, like in the world,
Speaker 3: like I have to it has to be it. I
Speaker 3: have to feel like I'm making a contribution of some kind,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm not just putting like more trash out
Speaker 3: in the world that feels really important to me and
Speaker 3: always has. And also like and then as a director, certainly,
Speaker 3: I mean, if you're going to spend over a year
Speaker 3: on something like I want to I want to know
Speaker 3: why I'm making it. I want to know the fact
Speaker 3: the effect that I want to have on people. Like
Speaker 3: Space Oddity was very much about, you know, a twenty
Speaker 3: something year old who's really depressed round on climate, you know,
Speaker 3: and around the grief and the loss of a sibling,
Speaker 3: and because of that, he wants to go on a
Speaker 3: one way journey to Mars.
Speaker 2: But he grew up on a flower farm.
Speaker 3: He's seeing climate you know, change firsthand, and he's really
Speaker 3: in despair about it. And so it's really about his
Speaker 3: journey of like falling back in love with the earth
Speaker 3: right and becoming like I want to fix things here.
Speaker 3: There is no planet b right. So that was like
Speaker 3: very much why I wanted to do that story. It
Speaker 3: like felt really critical that I'd make a story that
Speaker 3: had to do with you know, climate and climate change
Speaker 3: and the effect that it's having on everybody but specifically
Speaker 3: this young man and then tell the and then give
Speaker 3: like the antidote to that is like fall back in
Speaker 3: love with the earth, like take care of this planet,
Speaker 3: take care of your relationships, like deal with your grief
Speaker 3: around it, and then move on and fix things here.
Speaker 3: Don't check out and go away. And that felt like
Speaker 3: a big reason to do this. Do the movie.
Speaker 1: You started producing when you were very, very young. I
Speaker 1: mean it was I didn't even really even at the time,
Speaker 1: think of the implications, not only of your age, because
Speaker 1: you know, I just never thought of you always seem
Speaker 1: like such a grown up, a grown woman to me
Speaker 1: from the from the from the time I met you
Speaker 1: and now and now when I finally had had a
Speaker 1: daughter many years ago who turned twenty one, I thought, wow,
Speaker 1: is this one I married your mom? This is like crazy,
Speaker 1: you're like a child. But I I you were so
Speaker 1: hands on in in creating your own opportunities work wise,
Speaker 1: in terms of like finding scripts and optioning books and
Speaker 1: things and and creating ideas. And it's as a as
Speaker 1: a not only as a young person, but as a woman.
Speaker 1: At that point in the industry, it was kind of
Speaker 1: unheard of to a certain extent, certainly for an actor
Speaker 1: to be doing that for for themselves. What what what
Speaker 1: do you think it is that that gave you that
Speaker 1: that impetus or that that confidence to want to like
Speaker 1: to take charge in that way.
Speaker 4: You know, I don't really know except to say that
Speaker 4: I I mean sometimes when you're older, you look back
Speaker 4: and you go, God, I can't believe I had all
Speaker 4: that hut spot, Like, what the he?
Speaker 2: How the hell did I get that?
Speaker 3: You know, I I just think that it was always
Speaker 3: a desire to do more, like to be a bigger
Speaker 3: part of my business, to be a bigger part of
Speaker 3: my my ability to make choices in the world, a
Speaker 3: bigger part of creating my own opportunities. You know, I'm
Speaker 3: I'm really like, as you know, I'm a jack in
Speaker 3: the box and uh, you know, and you know, always
Speaker 3: wanting to.
Speaker 2: I don't know life.
Speaker 1: What I mean by that and what you mean by that,
Speaker 1: because people may not quite get it. So give an example.
Speaker 3: The Jack in the box is like, I could get
Speaker 3: up right now. I don't really want to even sit here. Yeah, no,
Speaker 3: I mean it's really hard for me to sit still,
Speaker 3: you know, and waiting around for scripts was not something
Speaker 3: that I did well or continue to do well.
Speaker 2: My Jack in the box, our Jack in the Box
Speaker 2: story is.
Speaker 3: That you know, we sit down to watch something, and
Speaker 3: you know, literally every five minutes, I'm getting up and
Speaker 3: doing something.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm always have a reason.
Speaker 5: For getting up and doing something.
Speaker 1: But sure you do.
Speaker 3: But but but I'm it is hard for me to
Speaker 3: sit still.
Speaker 1: And you multitask, you have you have a lot of
Speaker 1: things going on all the time on a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of things that you're holding inside one mind at all
Speaker 1: the time. And I would I would point out that
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of them, a huge percentage of them,
Speaker 1: are various ways of doing service for other people and
Speaker 1: other causes. And whether it's you know, making sure that
Speaker 1: somebody you know that is close to you, you know,
Speaker 1: has a chance to you know, have a conversation, or
Speaker 1: or making sure that you show up on a picket line,
Speaker 1: or or or you're trying to you know, make calls
Speaker 1: in a political I mean, it's it's not just like, well,
Speaker 1: I got a script over here, and I got a
Speaker 1: call over here, and I gotta you know, I'm you know,
Speaker 1: having lunch with my friend and you know, get my
Speaker 1: hair done. It's it's like a lot of big part
Speaker 1: of the multiple things that you hold in your head
Speaker 1: are are are just ways of giving service and giving back.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's it's pretty impressive.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: That's not really a question, was it. Uh No, But
Speaker 1: I think that.
Speaker 3: I also just want to say that thing about the
Speaker 3: producing thing. It's like, as a woman, like you can't
Speaker 3: really sit around or just wait for shit to happen, right,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. It's like you gotta like
Speaker 3: keep things moving, you know. I mean as an actor,
Speaker 3: it's hard to sit around and just wait for the
Speaker 3: calls to come in. And I, frankly, you know, even
Speaker 3: with all the success I've had, I've never had the
Speaker 3: career where I could just like sit back and wait
Speaker 3: for this stuff to happen. So I think that, you know,
Speaker 3: I've always thought entrepreneurially that way. My father was an entrepreneur,
Speaker 3: and like, you know, I'm going to get this thing here,
Speaker 3: and when this thing here, I'm going to put these
Speaker 3: things together. And knowing what you don't know is just
Speaker 3: as important as like knowing what you do. Know. It's like,
Speaker 3: I don't know if I can do that, but I'm
Speaker 3: pretty sure I can do that. And if I don't
Speaker 3: know what I'm going to do, I'm going to bring
Speaker 3: in this guy and bring in this girl and you
Speaker 3: know so, so I think it's exciting and makes you
Speaker 3: feel like more in control of your life, and especially
Speaker 3: as a woman, and especially as a woman in this business,
Speaker 3: like we need, we need to take charge because otherwise,
Speaker 3: I don't know, you'll get forgotten or railroaded or something.
Speaker 1: And then, brilliantly, after all these years and having this
Speaker 1: tremendous success as an actor, you said, you know what
Speaker 1: I want to direct, and you know, talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about that, that moment where you know you decided
Speaker 1: to shift gears. You're not the first actor that decided
Speaker 1: has decided to do that, but I think it is.
Speaker 1: It's interesting, it's challenging, and I think in your case,
Speaker 1: correct me if I'm wrong, it was a little bit
Speaker 1: of an aha kind of moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 3: It was kind of shocking because if you read some
Speaker 3: of my old interviews, I would always say I'll.
Speaker 2: Never direct, I'll never direct.
Speaker 3: Boy, I really learned my lesson around saying never say
Speaker 3: never because you just don't know. Oh. But I think
Speaker 3: I was afraid to direct. And I think that number one,
Speaker 3: you know, I think that I wasn't exposed to a
Speaker 3: lot of female directors. I mean, after working as an
Speaker 3: actor for over forty five years. I've worked with a
Speaker 3: handful of female directors.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's pathetic.
Speaker 3: So I don't think if you don't see it, you
Speaker 3: can't dream it, you know. And I think that that's
Speaker 3: a big part of it. And I also think that
Speaker 3: as you know, there was some famous line about you
Speaker 3: know your your your taste and your talent, like you
Speaker 3: know when you've been doing something for you know you
Speaker 3: haven't done it at all. You have this really you know,
Speaker 3: you have a you have a high level of taste,
Speaker 3: you know of like understand like I've always understood what
Speaker 3: makes not understood or like I've always I have a
Speaker 3: very I have a very clear I opinion of what
Speaker 3: I think is a good film. Oh yes, yes exactly,
Speaker 3: and you know, thinking and then. But my skill set
Speaker 3: would never be as high fluten as my tastes. Right,
Speaker 3: So I think that there's understanding that disparity can make
Speaker 3: you frozen in like paralyzed, you know, perfectionism, paralyzation, right,
Speaker 3: So I think that paralyzed and perfectionism, I think they
Speaker 3: can follow each other if you're too you know, worried
Speaker 3: about being perfect. So I think it's scary to take
Speaker 3: a chance. Women are generally risk averse for good reason,
Speaker 3: because I think we only get one chance, maybe two.
Speaker 3: Don't get me started on that, and so we are
Speaker 3: a little more risk averse. But I think that, honestly,
Speaker 3: it had a lot to do with you, which is
Speaker 3: I you know, it's hard.
Speaker 5: To get enough credit, but I mean, I think for
Speaker 5: years you were like, you really should direct, you know,
Speaker 5: you really have an eye for it, you And.
Speaker 3: And I just told myself a lot of stories, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean, about ways why I couldn't do it.
Speaker 3: And then I stopped telling myself that story. And I
Speaker 3: had something that I had been wanting to make into
Speaker 3: a film for a really long time as a producer,
Speaker 3: and and I finally was like, you know, I've lived
Speaker 3: with this thing for ten years, and the opportunity came
Speaker 3: to make it, and I was like, you know what,
Speaker 3: and I want.
Speaker 2: To direct it.
Speaker 3: And literally, when I set it out loud loud in
Speaker 3: the meeting, it was sort of like, who the hell
Speaker 3: just said? That? Was that me that I say that?
Speaker 3: But I but once I said it, I realized it
Speaker 3: was true. And I think that it was scary and
Speaker 3: it was you know, I felt the fear, and I
Speaker 3: just did it anyway, you know, and then fell madly
Speaker 3: in love with it, you know, so now I don't
Speaker 3: want to turn back.
Speaker 1: Well, there was no shock to me that you fell
Speaker 1: in love with it, And the reason that it was
Speaker 1: no shock to me was that I could always see
Speaker 1: you either on the set when you were acting in something,
Speaker 1: looking at things with a directorial eye, and I towards
Speaker 1: what's happening with this process? Is there anything that's going
Speaker 1: on here that's not going to be useful to us
Speaker 1: in the final product. You also oftentimes knew exactly what
Speaker 1: it was that another actor was missing in terms of
Speaker 1: their performance. And when we would watch films together. Now
Speaker 1: if we go to the movies, we sometimes have to,
Speaker 1: you know, try to remind you to you're not allowed
Speaker 1: to talk back at the screen, but while we're at
Speaker 1: home you do all the time. Oh my god, please
Speaker 1: or oh wow. These are things that you would say
Speaker 1: while watching, which to me sort of indicates that you're
Speaker 1: you're you have a certain kind of analytical thing about
Speaker 1: the art of filmmaking. Not to mention you know, your
Speaker 1: point of view or visual style, but I think you
Speaker 1: really came to it from a personal mostly a personal
Speaker 1: and human kind of, you know, connection to it. So
Speaker 1: it never really surprised me not only that you would
Speaker 1: want to do it, but that also that you would
Speaker 1: be so good at it, especially since I remember, you know,
Speaker 1: from the very from very early on, you come to
Speaker 1: the set and I could see you watching me off camera,
Speaker 1: and every once in a while and you come up
Speaker 1: and say, hey, do a little less or hey, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, don't smile some of whatever it was, you know,
Speaker 1: little little tips for hobby that you just couldn't resist.
Speaker 1: And sometimes I'd have to say, honey, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe don't make any suggestions right now, because that's you
Speaker 1: know Clint Eastwood over there, or Ron Howard or or
Speaker 1: Oliver Stone or you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: But but it's it's it's it makes complete sense to
Speaker 6: me that you would have, you know, found this this
Speaker 6: other way to communicate all the all the you know,
Speaker 6: artistic talent that you have.
Speaker 1: H when you when we first started this conversation, we
Speaker 1: talked about, you know, how you were feeling and how overwhelming, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, life can be and the news can be
Speaker 1: and all those things. How do you personally kind of
Speaker 1: deal with that when when you when you when you
Speaker 1: have those feelings, well, I.
Speaker 3: Try to remember, in terms of the environmental depression that
Speaker 3: can overwhelm that part of my job is to love
Speaker 3: the planet exactly how she is today.
Speaker 5: And to.
Speaker 3: Take joy and solace in her beauty. And I feel
Speaker 3: like that's super important to do. So when I get
Speaker 3: overwhelmed with like how terrible everything is and I get
Speaker 3: so scared, I still that feels like a guiding life
Speaker 3: for me, like a very important thing to keep in
Speaker 3: mind that I get to, you know, be joyful and
Speaker 3: love what's here now. I think doing service is really
Speaker 3: the antidote to feeling bad.
Speaker 2: I mean, it just it just is. That's the question
Speaker 2: you asked, right, honey. Okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean if I can do something every day that
Speaker 3: makes me feel like I'm taking an action for healing around,
Speaker 3: whether it's you know, what I buy at the grocery store,
Speaker 3: like avoiding single use plastic and going you know what,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to I'm not going to buy the
Speaker 3: you know, tuna sandwich that's in a plastic box for
Speaker 3: no reason or God forbid, like the plastic covered orange.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm going to make a choice with my
Speaker 3: dollar to you know, buy something that I know I
Speaker 3: can that will not create a lot of waste that
Speaker 3: will last longer than the Pyramids, which is what plastic lasts.
Speaker 3: How long plastic lasts. It will last millennium. It will
Speaker 3: be here long past my lifetime and my children's lifetime.
Speaker 3: So I have to understand that every time I use
Speaker 3: a piece of plastic, contrary to popular belief, it does
Speaker 3: not get recycled and recycled. For these companies are putting
Speaker 3: it in the ocean or burning it, which I don't
Speaker 3: think is recycled. Like three percent of all plastic is recycled,
Speaker 3: so that's a paltry number. So I have to So
Speaker 3: that's a way to take action right and make me
Speaker 3: feel a little bit better and a little more a
Speaker 3: part of the solution. And also doing service, any kind
Speaker 3: of service, whether it's you know, doing something for the
Speaker 3: food bank for New York City, or doing something for
Speaker 3: Swing Left, which is a you know, political group that
Speaker 3: I'm involved with, or or whipping up you know, phone bankers,
Speaker 3: getting on a zoom or going somewhere and going raw raw.
Speaker 3: You guys, you're volunteering. You're amazing. I'm so excited that
Speaker 3: you're here today, and let's go out and knock on
Speaker 3: some doors, you know, encouraging people to vote, encouraging people
Speaker 3: to use their voice, helping them understand that they make
Speaker 3: a difference, that everything they do makes a difference, and
Speaker 3: not be inundated with the apathy that they, the corporations
Speaker 3: want us to feel all the time and the political
Speaker 3: entities want us to feel all the time, so that
Speaker 3: we just don't make any noise and we don't get
Speaker 3: too angry, and we don't force them to make a
Speaker 3: different and better choice.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: So I'm going to be that person who's going to
Speaker 3: be like, you can do it, yes, And that feels
Speaker 3: like something I can do. I'm good at, you know,
Speaker 3: going on MSNBC and talking about why I walked in
Speaker 3: the Climate March and specifically why I walked in it,
Speaker 3: and so, you know, just doing what I can to
Speaker 3: use my voice to elevate people that don't have as
Speaker 3: loud a voice, you know, or don't have people pointing
Speaker 3: a camera at them.
Speaker 1: And is there anything that you do? Uh, those are
Speaker 1: all amazing. Is there anything that you do personally just
Speaker 1: for yourself? I mean, drink tea or I don't know,
Speaker 1: I think people would be interested in a Yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Mean I think I exercise a lot. Exercise really helps
Speaker 3: me to both my serotonin because I can get you
Speaker 3: know blue. I feel like it's a it's a real
Speaker 3: like chemical thing for me. I meditate, try to meditate
Speaker 3: every day utterly and perfectly, because you know, there's no
Speaker 3: such thing as a perfect meditation. You know, you're constantly
Speaker 3: trying to discipline your mind to just come back to
Speaker 3: the breath and uh. And I find it really helpful
Speaker 3: because because it's so easy to like land on the negative.
Speaker 3: For me, it just it just is. And so so
Speaker 3: if I can like see that negative and move right
Speaker 3: past it. You know, sometimes sometimes it's important to immerse
Speaker 3: yourself and in, you know, the problem, so you can
Speaker 3: understand what the solutions might be. But sometimes it's like
Speaker 3: really unhealthy to immerse myself in the problem, so I
Speaker 3: try to like figure that out.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Community like community like talking to people, having friends, having
Speaker 3: a community that I can go to to talk about,
Speaker 3: you know, talking to other activists also really makes me
Speaker 3: feel good. Really, those kinds of things can help like
Speaker 3: quell the like despair and like you know, hamster wheel
Speaker 3: in my.
Speaker 1: Brain well, I think this is a good segue to
Speaker 1: bring in our pal stay Hugh Kacey. Stacy runs six
Speaker 1: degrees dot org, which is the foundation that I started
Speaker 1: and that Kira has oftentimes interacted and overlapped with, and
Speaker 1: that is where this where this podcast sprung from. So Stacey, welcome,
Speaker 1: thanks so much.
Speaker 5: I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1: How are you doing.
Speaker 5: I'm doing good. Similar to Kira, it was a rough
Speaker 5: way to start the day, for sure. I know in
Speaker 5: this airs it'll be getting Tuesday and we're coming off
Speaker 5: of the holiday with our family and a good in
Speaker 5: a good space. But yeah, filming a few weeks ahead
Speaker 5: of time. Obviously, we woke up to some pretty sad
Speaker 5: news and it's almost numbing, but also the reason why
Speaker 5: we we get up every day and we do this work.
Speaker 5: So I'm just glad that I get to be with
Speaker 5: with you all today.
Speaker 1: And speaking of doing the work, which we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about, but I want to find out from you
Speaker 1: what is it, I mean that makes you want to
Speaker 1: do this work. You've been with six Degrees how many
Speaker 1: years has it been there?
Speaker 5: Almost eight years?
Speaker 1: Almost eight years? And when you came on board, it
Speaker 1: was just the greatest moment, I could just feel all
Speaker 1: of your compassion and energy and intelligence and drive. And
Speaker 1: you know, I'm always impressed with people who choose a
Speaker 1: life of being involved with, you know, giving back, And
Speaker 1: I just wondered what you think it is about you
Speaker 1: and about your upbringing the bride to this place.
Speaker 5: I think, first off, thank you, that was all so
Speaker 5: kind to hear. I think often this work finds us
Speaker 5: and it chooses us. You know, Kira, and I don't
Speaker 5: know if you remember this, we did a podcast together,
Speaker 5: the Web of Women, a few years ago, and that's
Speaker 5: when you and I really got to know each other well,
Speaker 5: and so much of what you spoke about that day
Speaker 5: and earlier today resumeets with me. I grew up in
Speaker 5: an environment pretty kind of mid upper class kind of town,
Speaker 5: but I had a mother who was legally blind, was
Speaker 5: in a car accident when I was eight years old.
Speaker 5: I had a father that was abusive and then left
Speaker 5: shortly after that, and then a stepfather that was an alcoholic,
Speaker 5: a wonderful man, but had substance abuse. And so a
Speaker 5: lot of my life was trying to sit in with
Speaker 5: what I felt like were perfect lives around me. Everywhere
Speaker 5: I looked which we all know that was wasn't the case, right,
Speaker 5: But that's how it seems when you're when you're young sometimes.
Speaker 5: But I was having to grow up really quickly, being
Speaker 5: somewhat of a caretaker and thinking about my mom and
Speaker 5: supporting her being visually impaired, also being the recipient for
Speaker 5: so many programs that helped our family get by and
Speaker 5: allowed me to play sports and play varsity volleyball and
Speaker 5: be a part of the school newspaper and go on
Speaker 5: to college and you know, be able to pay for
Speaker 5: the university that I wanted to go to, and so
Speaker 5: on and so forth. But I my whole life, I
Speaker 5: was a pretty deep mpath and still am, and I
Speaker 5: often would find myself similar to here. It just like
Speaker 5: overcome with emotion when something in the world was so painful.
Speaker 5: And when I had this opportunity to come and work
Speaker 5: for you, I felt like it was a culmination of
Speaker 5: all these different things in my life and my career
Speaker 5: because at that point I had been doing new market development,
Speaker 5: business and sales for quite a long time on the
Speaker 5: for profit side. But it was an opportunity to finally
Speaker 5: kind of use those skills and talent to move the
Speaker 5: needle more than I felt like I could do as
Speaker 5: just an individual, and you a looted that platform, that
Speaker 5: extension of you and your platform and Kira as well
Speaker 5: to help move these programs and help amplify these campaigns
Speaker 5: so that we could do a great deal of good.
Speaker 5: So really, I think it was, yeah, the culmination of
Speaker 5: kind of life experiences and knowing that I needed to
Speaker 5: take a step and I would only be fulfilled if
Speaker 5: I was doing kind of purpose driven work.
Speaker 1: Amazing, Well, this is an episode where we are shamelessly
Speaker 1: tooting our own hoards, starting with having listen to anybody
Speaker 1: would be lucky to have my wife as a guest
Speaker 1: on her podcast, So I and it was Stacy's idea,
Speaker 1: and I was like, well, like, I think she's going
Speaker 1: to want to do it. Let's say I'll get her
Speaker 1: to do it. I think she probably did it more
Speaker 1: for you, Stace than she did for me.
Speaker 5: We appreciate that.
Speaker 1: But since we are here tooting our own hoards, let's
Speaker 1: talk about six degrees and what we have going on
Speaker 1: these days.
Speaker 5: Yeah, for sure. So I think most people know the
Speaker 5: sixth degrees separation theory and what has been synonymous with
Speaker 5: you Kevin and your career, the sixth Degrees of Kevin Bacon,
Speaker 5: and just a little background for those that you know
Speaker 5: know that idea but know less a little less about
Speaker 5: six degrees dot org. You basically started this organization in
Speaker 5: two thousand and seven. You really wanted to take yourself
Speaker 5: out of it in a way, and you've talked about
Speaker 5: this lots of time in the past, like if you
Speaker 5: take me out, we're all just human beings looking for
Speaker 5: and in fact really needing connection. So six Degrees was
Speaker 5: founded along those principles and much of what Kira and
Speaker 5: you talked about earlier, like providing opportunities for people to
Speaker 5: connect with one another through these different service opportunities and
Speaker 5: opportunities to get back. So you know, we really just
Speaker 5: support initiatives that sustain in rich local communities. We're focused
Speaker 5: all in the United States. This podcast has been a
Speaker 5: way for us to kind of look at organizations globally,
Speaker 5: which has been really really fun. But our core programming
Speaker 5: have always been really focused domestically because that's where we
Speaker 5: believe we can make the greatest impact. So we have
Speaker 5: four pillars. Those pillars are youth empowerment, which we obviously
Speaker 5: do a lot or work around young people through music
Speaker 5: and education and you know, getting them tools and resources
Speaker 5: that they need, just as an equity, which is you know,
Speaker 5: it's a wide whye reaching of course from gender equity
Speaker 5: to and we kind of touched on that through LGBTQ rights,
Speaker 5: so on and so forth. Improving a sustainable living environment,
Speaker 5: and that's where we kind of do the work around
Speaker 5: climate action and PSAs to help people to move in
Speaker 5: the right direction towards better sustainable goals in terms of
Speaker 5: our environment. And then we really try to remain agile
Speaker 5: so that we can support some emerging crisis that come up.
Speaker 5: And it seems like that's happening obviously more and more
Speaker 5: directly related to gun violence or natural disasters that seem
Speaker 5: to be on the uptick. If you are inspired by
Speaker 5: today's episode, please join us in supporting six degrees dot
Speaker 5: org by texting the word Bacon to seven zero seven
Speaker 5: zero seven zero. Your gift empowers us to continue to
Speaker 5: produce programs that highlight the incredible work of everyday heroes,
Speaker 5: well also enabling us to provide essential resources to those
Speaker 5: that need it the most. Once again, text b A
Speaker 5: c N to seven zero seven zero seven zero or
Speaker 5: visit six degrees dot org to learn more.
Speaker 1: It's interesting talking about these pillars, and we've talked about
Speaker 1: it a lot, and it really relates back to you, Kurra.
Speaker 1: You know. You you were saying how you were kind
Speaker 1: of going down this list of uh, environment and hunger,
Speaker 1: your your relationship with food bank in New York, and
Speaker 1: gun violence and the times that you've you know, reached
Speaker 1: out and also on political causes. And you know, we're
Speaker 1: kind of in the same boade in terms of six degrees.
Speaker 1: And I often talk about how if you're going to
Speaker 1: be a celebrity and get involved with the cause, it's
Speaker 1: probably going to be easier if you just pick one,
Speaker 1: you know. And And when when I was taught thinking
Speaker 1: about doing this this uh, you know, six degrees dot org,
Speaker 1: every time I would think, well, I'll just do you know,
Speaker 1: save the redwoods, or it's just going to be kids,
Speaker 1: or it's just going to be you know, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: I just kept going, Yeah, but there's this over here,
Speaker 1: and there's this over here, and there's this over here.
Speaker 1: And there was something about the number six and the
Speaker 1: and the and and the and the idea of connectivity
Speaker 1: that I just really resisted and and so I think
Speaker 1: that it's interesting that all of us, all all three
Speaker 1: of us have that point of view where where where
Speaker 1: we just are, uh, we just see so much out
Speaker 1: there that that you know, needs help. And it's been
Speaker 1: so fascinating from the podcast point of view because people
Speaker 1: come in and every time I finished talking to the
Speaker 1: person that runs their organization, I'm like, oh, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the thing, you know, and then somebody else comes in
Speaker 1: and we talk about that, and I feel that as well.
Speaker 1: I mean, are there challenge Jesus if I challenges in
Speaker 1: terms of that stace, like in terms of like, you know,
Speaker 1: keeping our focus being spread too thin?
Speaker 5: I mean, you know, I think absolutely. And for the
Speaker 5: first few years it was a struggle to also community
Speaker 5: keep that to funders, right because at the end of
Speaker 5: the day, you're doing all this incredible work. We know
Speaker 5: it's not just anecdotal. We can see the impact, we
Speaker 5: have the metrics around it. But you know, we talked
Speaker 5: about this. Sometimes it's easier to say we do water,
Speaker 5: we provide access to water and you know, and we
Speaker 5: put in wells, and that's a very easy and clear message,
Speaker 5: but quite frankly, it's it doesn't speak to kind of
Speaker 5: who you are, who I am here is like there
Speaker 5: are these diverse needs and they're all seemingly critical, right,
Speaker 5: and we want to be able to utilize the resources
Speaker 5: that we have and like our basically our core free
Speaker 5: programs to address these these needs. And so much of
Speaker 5: our pillars overlap, right because and we can talk a
Speaker 5: little bit about this some of our different programs, but
Speaker 5: you know, when we build kits, that's like our main
Speaker 5: program right now, where we are focused on pulling essential
Speaker 5: resources together and give them to different people in need.
Speaker 5: I mean that touches racial justice, food injustice, environmental impacts
Speaker 5: of injustice, and oftentimes we're coming in after natural disasters
Speaker 5: to help support people, or we just did this building
Speaker 5: kit in Houston to help with hurricane preparedness kids so
Speaker 5: that they could be better prepared should that inevitable hurricane
Speaker 5: come and hit that area. So I mean we see
Speaker 5: such an overlap now. So I do feel we are
Speaker 5: kind of keenly focused on core areas that we can
Speaker 5: do the most impact in the other core programs are
Speaker 5: Cause Evolved, and that's really what you're seeing with the podcast.
Speaker 5: So we're utilizing our unique expertise to create really compelling storytelling,
Speaker 5: and our hope is that we cut through the noise
Speaker 5: and really capture attention and then inspire people to action.
Speaker 5: So with this podcast, that's why it's really important that
Speaker 5: we have these call to actions. We have the people
Speaker 5: on the ground that are the true change makers on
Speaker 5: the podcast to talk about their day to day activities,
Speaker 5: because we know that no one tells a story better
Speaker 5: than those people that are like the battle soldiers on
Speaker 5: the ground doing this work day in and day out.
Speaker 5: And the celebrity is the hook, right Like, it's not,
Speaker 5: and it's different, right I think that we really have
Speaker 5: been thoughtful with the different celebrity or talent that have
Speaker 5: come on this show and that will continue to come
Speaker 5: on that we want them to have a sincere connection
Speaker 5: to truly care about the work. You know, it's more
Speaker 5: than a tweet, although tweets are important, right Like, it
Speaker 5: actually does draw a lot of attention those simple actions
Speaker 5: because of your immense platform. But we've used six degrees
Speaker 5: to you know, do format shows like this or play
Speaker 5: on which was the music benefit we did. We raised
Speaker 5: over seven million dollars for racial justice and food insecurity
Speaker 5: back in twenty twenty. You know, at the you know,
Speaker 5: basically what we thought was almost the end of the pandemic,
Speaker 5: and it was really only just beginning at that point.
Speaker 5: And then our third program, which is Degree Shift, and
Speaker 5: that's been something that we've been doing for quite some time,
Speaker 5: which is just being a convenor of these different campaigns together,
Speaker 5: different stakeholders, different people of influence organizations, and we get everyone,
Speaker 5: you know, with a single call to action and really
Speaker 5: trying to maximize the impact of that by drawing attention
Speaker 5: to a singular cause. And so most people probably will
Speaker 5: know the campaign that we did I Stay Home For
Speaker 5: and that was the beginning of twenty twenty when covid
Speaker 5: had just really shook the whole world, and you know,
Speaker 5: we call it kind of like a lightning and a
Speaker 5: bottle time period because it was a pandemic. The entire
Speaker 5: world was facing the same thing and we were all
Speaker 5: being told to kind of shelter in place. And our
Speaker 5: way of trying to support that was the campaign that
Speaker 5: you launched via six degrees Kevin, asking people to share
Speaker 5: a video or a photo simply saying who they're staying
Speaker 5: home for. And the idea was to say, we're not
Speaker 5: doing this for ourselves. Like you might be healthy, and
Speaker 5: you might be young, and you may not have any
Speaker 5: pre existing conditions, but you're staying home for your grandmother
Speaker 5: or for your sister that you know has an autoimmune disease,
Speaker 5: or so on and so forth. And through campaigns like that,
Speaker 5: we've received lots of recognition and support from the community
Speaker 5: through you know, Webbys and Shorty Impact Awards and Telly
Speaker 5: Awards and those sorts of things, which which is all great.
Speaker 5: That just lets us know that people believe that we're
Speaker 5: on the right track here. But the idea is that
Speaker 5: we build these campaigns that are really accessible for people
Speaker 5: to do. They're also easy to replicate, so that people
Speaker 5: can take ownership and make these campaigns their own and
Speaker 5: spread messages and appeals to their own networks and try
Speaker 5: to help further you know, the impact, and do good
Speaker 5: in their own communities and neighborhoods.
Speaker 1: Cure, I don't I don't want to put you on
Speaker 1: the spot, but do you remember any kind of six
Speaker 1: degrees based the thing that you were involved with that
Speaker 1: was memorable? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Remember that really great spoken word thing. Remind me a
Speaker 3: little bit of.
Speaker 5: That stacy we were That was a couple of years
Speaker 5: that was in d C. Yeah, March for Our Lives.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, it was, that's right. Oh god, oh
Speaker 3: it's hard to think. Yeah, right, exactly, it's it's it's
Speaker 3: it's amazing because it was really I think it was
Speaker 3: Marjorie Douglas High School had that horrific shooting and that
Speaker 3: was the catalyst for March for Our Lives and it
Speaker 3: was a you know, trying to bring attention to gun
Speaker 3: violence in d C. And before the march, there was
Speaker 3: a an event at a like.
Speaker 2: A like a.
Speaker 3: Venue where people did spoken word about their experience with
Speaker 3: gun violence. And it was extraordinary and there were a
Speaker 3: lot of young people there and it was I think
Speaker 3: it was hosted by sixty degree and it was extraordinary.
Speaker 3: I mean it was You really could feel the need
Speaker 3: that these kids had to share their experience in a
Speaker 3: communal way and to have people be affected by it.
Speaker 3: And it was it was incredible for everybody, for the
Speaker 3: people that were watching and the people that were participating,
Speaker 3: and I thought, oh, you're really doing a great thing here,
Speaker 3: you know, you guys, really you really really got your
Speaker 3: finger on it. You know.
Speaker 5: It kind of comes back to us really focusing on
Speaker 5: amplifying voices with lived experiences, and that was an example
Speaker 5: an event where it was actually just young people that
Speaker 5: were asked to speak and share. And what Marjorie Douglas
Speaker 5: did so well when they were the kind of the
Speaker 5: catalysts for this March for Our Lives was enormous and
Speaker 5: I remember, I mean it was palpable the pain that
Speaker 5: you fell in the air from all these young people.
Speaker 5: But also their intention about making a change and having
Speaker 5: their voices heard is that they were inclusive in DC
Speaker 5: the night before out of all the young you know,
Speaker 5: inner city young people that experience gun violence all the time, right,
Speaker 5: and it's in their neighborhoods and in their communities, and
Speaker 5: they made space for that on on you know, during
Speaker 5: the poetry event and and the day the next day
Speaker 5: at the march. But I remember that I think that
Speaker 5: was our first time meeting in person. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: And I just remember it being I mean, it is
Speaker 5: one of those things that's a unifier because it was
Speaker 5: very heavy, but but I think it's it's important, right,
Speaker 5: It was like comfortable. It was very hard, a lot
Speaker 5: of tears shed, but we show up and we look
Speaker 5: at it because we walk through that privilege that we
Speaker 5: don't you know, have those lived experiences all the time, right,
Speaker 5: but we want to show up for those that do,
Speaker 5: and we want to be an ally.
Speaker 3: I totally agree. And I think being you know, not
Speaker 3: afraid to look is a really important thing, you know,
Speaker 3: I think because these things do exist in our lives
Speaker 3: and they're happening all the time and they need to
Speaker 3: be witnessed. So I think that having that was pretty
Speaker 3: extraordinary for them and for us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was great. It was a great night. We
Speaker 1: have some special announcements scenes. This is Giving Tuesday of Stacey.
Speaker 1: You do want to talk about what we have going
Speaker 1: on here or any kind of call to action that
Speaker 1: we can hit right now for six degrees dot Org.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so, because we are still under this strike, I'm
Speaker 5: gonna dance around this a bit. But you think that
Speaker 5: I did that.
Speaker 1: I see what you did there. Maybe by Given Tuesday
Speaker 1: there won't be a strike.
Speaker 5: Maybe maybe we can bleep it into the script. But
Speaker 5: a certain dance film that has been synonymous with your career,
Speaker 5: Kevin is turning forty, which, oh, how is that happening?
Speaker 5: I don't It's like right twenty years ago, But somehow
Speaker 5: the film has aged passed you. So it's a fortieth year,
Speaker 5: which is amazing, and in celebration of that, six Degrees
Speaker 5: is going to commit to.
Speaker 1: By the way, I was, I was seven when I
Speaker 1: made that film exactly.
Speaker 3: It was amazing.
Speaker 1: It was amazing. They aged me up a whole bunch.
Speaker 1: It was sorry, I'm sorry to interrupt, go ahead.
Speaker 5: AI was involved in the conversation then as well, apparently,
Speaker 5: but no, I, it's as we're going to build forty
Speaker 5: thousand kits for the essential care items across the entire country.
Speaker 5: So that's our commitment at six trees dot org. We're
Speaker 5: going to be partnering with our network of community partners
Speaker 5: across the whole country. And what's really special about the
Speaker 5: forty thousand kis it's people might say like, okay, like
Speaker 5: you know, sure there are hygiene items and books and
Speaker 5: you know, shampoo conditioner, Like what does that really do
Speaker 5: in the longevity of this partnership. But we've been running
Speaker 5: this program now for six months, and we've been working
Speaker 5: with nonprofits at the grassroots level for a lot longer
Speaker 5: than that, and what we find is that, you know,
Speaker 5: it's the best way to put it. This way, you
Speaker 5: walk into target and if you want to buy house
Speaker 5: targets and to say I'm sorry, like we don't sell
Speaker 5: you houses, right, But when you're a constituent and you
Speaker 5: walk into a nonprofit and you might be there because
Speaker 5: it's a food bank and you're hungry, but guess what,
Speaker 5: you also need clothes, you might need job services, you
Speaker 5: might need housing. When you're in this type of purpose
Speaker 5: driven work, you don't just turn people away. You exhaust
Speaker 5: your resources and your efforts and your bandwidth trying to
Speaker 5: either you know, turn someone to another organization that you
Speaker 5: create a partnership with or it's local in the community,
Speaker 5: or you open up your pockets and you provide them
Speaker 5: with what they need in the moment. And so what
Speaker 5: we're doing at six degrees is providing these essential kits,
Speaker 5: really talking to the nonprofits on the ground what they need,
Speaker 5: what they're being asked for, providing these items to those
Speaker 5: organizations so that they can focus on their core programs.
Speaker 5: So this is a way that we can serve them,
Speaker 5: help with their bandwidth and their resources and get them
Speaker 5: focused on what they're doing day to day to really
Speaker 5: make an impact in a greater way. So we're very,
Speaker 5: very excited about.
Speaker 1: That we stopped three three hundred backpacks the other day
Speaker 1: down in DC.
Speaker 3: We did.
Speaker 5: It was it was awesome.
Speaker 1: It was awesome.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, And that was a perfect example of like
Speaker 5: community organization coming together and local people that live in
Speaker 5: the area just stopping by and helping us with stuffing
Speaker 5: these backpacks and then getting them directly to a great
Speaker 5: organization that helps families and transition.
Speaker 1: So it's in a.
Speaker 5: Look that way, and it's going to cover kind of
Speaker 5: all of our different core pillars. And to officially launch
Speaker 5: us for Giving Tuesday, we have a fantastic partner which
Speaker 5: is Bonfire, and they are committing to twenty five thousand
Speaker 5: dollars in matching gifts. So if you text the word
Speaker 5: Bacon to seven zero seven zero seven zero, you can
Speaker 5: make a gift today and your gift is doubled, and
Speaker 5: it'll go on throughout the whole month into December. But
Speaker 5: it's going to be this kind of initial appeal for
Speaker 5: twenty twenty four and Bonfire is a really important partner
Speaker 5: for us. Bonfire has been a partner that we've worked
Speaker 5: with lots of times, and in fact, you and Kira
Speaker 5: have worn their shirts several times. So when we just
Speaker 5: did the Dragon is an art campaign people are listing,
Speaker 5: saw this little dynamic duo do a Taylor Swift dance
Speaker 5: with these really cool, beautifully designed T shirts. We did
Speaker 5: that with Bonfire, and it was an apparel campaign where
Speaker 5: we raised over fifty five thousand dollars and forty eight
Speaker 5: hours for ACLU and their Drag Defense fun which was
Speaker 5: really supporting lots of anti LGBTQ legislation fights that were
Speaker 5: all over the country. And we felt the need to
Speaker 5: stand up and exercise our voice. And you two stepped
Speaker 5: up and did we have the shirt? And you definitely
Speaker 5: did right, and you know, and with that we obviously
Speaker 5: did a great deal of good. But we also created
Speaker 5: these like walking billboards everywhere. And the great thing about
Speaker 5: Bonfire is like they're free to use. They take care
Speaker 5: of all the customers service for us, so we didn't
Speaker 5: have to really worry about our limited bandwidth or logistics.
Speaker 5: When it comes to fulfilling these products, it comes through
Speaker 5: as a donation for the organization, so that's a wonderful gift.
Speaker 5: People can also donate when they buy items. It's not
Speaker 5: just T shirts. We did coffee cups right now and
Speaker 5: toats and lots of different things that people can wear
Speaker 5: to help spread a message, right, and so Bonfire is
Speaker 5: open to the public. They can partner with them and
Speaker 5: they can put these beautiful campaigns that helped them to
Speaker 5: raise money, read a message, do a lot of good.
Speaker 5: They've been fantastic work to work with. We're just so excited,
Speaker 5: but really just a great, great support to the nonprofit community.
Speaker 5: And so they are a partner for this. We couldn't
Speaker 5: be more grateful because that's what it takes. It takes
Speaker 5: corporate partners stepping up and supporting us in this in
Speaker 5: this fight to the you know, spread good, spread kindness,
Speaker 5: build these kits, do social impact productions like this. It
Speaker 5: really takes a village. So we're grateful for hours. And
Speaker 5: today we are super excited because we're launching a special
Speaker 5: addition T shirt from your signature dance movie, Kevin. So
Speaker 5: if listeners go to bonfire dot com forward slash Kevin,
Speaker 5: they're going to see a super cool T shirt that
Speaker 5: we designed and got license and all that fun stuff
Speaker 5: so that we can raise money for all the programs
Speaker 5: that we talked about here today. And there's so many
Speaker 5: ways that Bonfire supports nonprofits and other individuals and change
Speaker 5: makers that are doing a world of good. So we
Speaker 5: have some really specific call to actions and they're easy, right, Like,
Speaker 5: mainly could share this podcast and you know, follow us
Speaker 5: along on all of our social media channels. All the
Speaker 5: links will be in the show notes. But really, following
Speaker 5: and engaging in content for nonprofits does a whole lot
Speaker 5: of good. Obviously, it helps us cast a much bigger net,
Speaker 5: increases our reach and therefore our impact. So we'd love
Speaker 5: to hear from you, guys, Hear what you're liking about
Speaker 5: the show, about the work that we're doing, and if
Speaker 5: you're so inclined, please join us as we fundraise to
Speaker 5: build all of these essential care kits by texting Bacon
Speaker 5: B A C N to seven zero seven zero seven zero.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you, Stacy, you rock, You really do
Speaker 1: so hard amazing. I'm so grateful to have you with
Speaker 1: six degrees and yeah, it's the best. It's the best
Speaker 1: means and also to know you and your beautiful, two
Speaker 1: beautiful little girls and your fantastic husband. Yes, we're thrilled
Speaker 1: to have you as as our friends and hire. I'm
Speaker 1: very happy to have you as my friend too.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Thank you very much, thanks for asking me
Speaker 3: to come. It's amazing. It's an honor, really, it really is.
Speaker 3: You guys are incredible and six degrees is incredible. I'm
Speaker 3: so proud of you guys and what you've accomplished and
Speaker 3: what you continue to do with that podcast. I think
Speaker 3: it's really something special. So I feel lucky to have
Speaker 3: been a part of it.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Kia, and come back anytime. Kay,
Speaker 1: Let's dat some more love you guys, Thanks for being here. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: thanks for listening to another episode of six Degrees with
Speaker 1: Kevin Bacon. And if you want to learn more about
Speaker 1: six degrees dot org and all the work that we
Speaker 1: are up to, you can head to six degrees dot org,
Speaker 1: reach out to Stacy on our social platforms, get connected,
Speaker 1: get involved. You can find all those links in our
Speaker 1: show notes, and if you like what you're hearing, subscribe
Speaker 1: to the show and tune in to the rest of
Speaker 1: our episodes. You can find six Degrees with Kevin Bacon
Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: We'll see you next time.