Sirens: Kevin Bacon on playing Peter Kell and exploring his inner complexity

Sirens on Netflix has garnered a huge fanbase for its depth and mystery. It makes every single character feel like a piece of a large puzzle. Nothing is placed without purpose. Even the characters who barely get a few lines matter. Jose is just the Kell household staff, but he’s actually practically Peter Kell’s right-hand man. So, he doesn’t really need a spotlight.

And then there’s Peter Kell himself. He is the seemingly chill, soft-spoken owner of the Kell mansion. He’s got money but doesn’t flash it. He adores his kids and grandkids. He’s the kind of guy you’d want as your boss. He is friendly and approachable. Played to perfection by Kevin Bacon, Peter is charming and thoughtful. But of course, this is Sirens, so there’s more to him than what we see.

At first, Peter feels like the least suspicious character. But there’s something a little layered about him. In this article, we’re getting right into what Kevin Bacon himself has to say about stepping into Peter’s shoes, and how even the most likable man on the island might have lingering shadows.

Sirens: Kevin Bacon on playing Peter Kell, the billionaire, goofball, and puppet master

In Sirens, Kevin Bacon’s Peter is the chill, “cool boss” type on the surface. But he is actually the one who pulls all the strings.

He is not the first person you meet on the island, but when he enters, everything starts revolving around him because everyone is on his payroll. It’s like Peter is the sun, and everyone starts revolving around him.

In an interview with Netflix Tudum, Kevin Bacon shared his take on playing the billionaire in Sirens. He explained how important it was to not make Peter just another “billionaire sh*thead.” He said:

"You don't become a billionaire by accident, and what I really wanted to make sure of is that I was going to have to be powerful in the face of powerful women — but more than that, I just wasn’t only going to be an absolute sh*thead, because I just feel like that’s pretty easy."

Honestly, it wouldn’t do justice to the layered character Sirens gives us. Instead, Bacon leaned into Peter’s boyish charm and his weirdly awkward, goofy behavior:

"...I tried to tap into something that was ... Even though I’m clearly not a boy, it was something sort of boyish about him, you know what I mean? In some ways, I seemed pretty immature in that Julianne’s character [Michaela] is clearly running the show, and then it switches a little bit — it switches a lot. That changes everything, and — this is all the writing by the way — I felt like the way to lean into that was to make him just boyish and maybe even a little goofy and shy. It’s fun to play when he meets [Simone], he’s 15 again. He doesn’t really know how to handle himself and is embarrassing himself. He is just acting like a little boy."

And that’s what makes Peter dangerous in a way you don’t expect. He’s not really a villain, but a rich, powerful man who seems harmless because he’s polite and easygoing.

Director Nicole Kassell, in a chat with The Hollywood Reporter, called Peter “the wealthiest sailor.” She said:

"...He’s definitely a sailor but the wealthiest sailor. It speaks to when someone’s kind of born of that work class. He’s from this wealthy world and then taken his wealth and quadrupled it or more, so just by inherent attitude towards wealth, when he walks into the room, he’s the most important person in the room, whether or not he even knows that. That’s how the world responds to him. He can wear his Crocs and old shorts and sweater, but he can’t shed the wealth that is in his DNA. He has all the trappings of a really nice guy. He’s polite to the staff and loyal to Jose and polite to Simone, but he gets what he wants, whatever it is that he wants."

And she’s right. Peter’s polite in Sirens. He smiles at everyone. He’s loyal to his right-hand man Jose, and he’s sweet to Simone. But when it comes down to it, if he wants something, he makes sure to get it. Period.

Which is exactly what happens when he suddenly ditches Michaela and replaces Michaela with Simone without missing a beat. Did he even love Simone? Even he doesn’t seem sure.

Kevin Bacon admitted in the Tudum interview that he doesn’t know when or if Peter actually falls in love with her in Sirens. He said:

"I don’t know that he really knows when he falls in love with Simone. It sort of sneaked up on him in a funny way so that when he kisses her, even after that moment, he has multiple self-realizations that ... I think he would go like, “Oh, what the f*ck am I thinking? That was just weird. I don’t know what I was doing. Maybe I was high.” But I think it’s also when I’m running down the beach, running out of the house … he knows."

But knows what, exactly? That he’s in love? Or that he’s impulsive? Or that he can have anything he wants, whenever he wants, because he’s Peter Kell? That’s the mystery. And that’s Sirens.

So, Peter Kell might look like a chill billionaire in Sirens, but he’s the reason everyone’s even on the island. Kevin Bacon captures Peter’s contradictions with subtle precision.

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