Kevin Bacon Joins ‘Black Mass,’ ‘Cop Car’ In Busy Three-Film Hiatus From ‘The Following’

EXCLUSIVE: Kevin Bacon‘s break from Fox’s The Following just got busier. Most actors try to fit in a project while on TV hiatus, but the Golden Globe winner is making the most of his down time with a three-film summer. He’s joined the cast of WB’s untitled Black Mass project opposite Johnny Depp as notorious Irish mobster Whitey Bulger, whose relationship with FBI agent John Connolly allowed him to evade law enforcement and become one of the most ruthless and powerful gangsters in Boston history. Bacon will play Charles McGuire, the FBI Special Agent in charge of the Boston field office and John Connelly’s boss. Scott Cooper is at the helm for a summer shoot in Boston with a cast that includes Joel Edgerton, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jesse Plemons, Sienna Miller, Dakota Johnson, Rory Cochran, Julianne Nicholson, and Adam Scott.

Related: Q&A: Kevin Bacon On 20 Years Of Six Degrees, ‘Animal House’ & ‘The Following’

Meanwhile, Bacon has been dancing under the radar in Colorado filming Cop Car, an indie thriller from director Jon Watts (The Fuzz, Eugene!). Pic tracks a police officer hunting down the two kids who stole his car for a joyride – unaware that there’s a dead body in the trunk. Bacon is playing the corrupt cop, Sheriff Shannon, in the Coen Brothers-esque project written by Watts and CD Ford and produced by Alicia Van Couvering (Drinking Buddies, Tiny Furniture).

All this after Bacon kicked off his summer by diving into the Greg McLean-helmed Blumhouse thriller 6 Miranda Drive, which he shot in Los Angeles after wrapping the second season of The Following. He stars in the microbudget thriller as the patriarch of a family that returns home from a trip to the Grand Canyon with a fear-feeding supernatural force in tow. Radha Mitchell co-stars in the pic produced by Jason Blum, Matt Kaplan of Chapter One and Bianca Martino of Emu Creek Pictures.

But wait, there’s more! Bacon will be squeezing in a tour across the U.S. with band The Bacon Bros., which kicks off this week as he hits the road until late August. That’s when he’ll have to return to the NY set of The Following, which is heading into its third season. Bacon is repped by WME, The Schiff Company, and attorney Fred Gaines.