Note: This story contains spoilers for “The Bondsman” episode 1

Kevin Bacon has played a lot of iconic characters over the course of his career, from Ren McCormack in “Footloose” to Val McKee in “Tremors.” But the chance to step into the shoes of the “badass” undead bounty hunter Hub Halloran in Prime Video’s “The Bondsman” was an opportunity that the actor says immediately piqued his interest.

“You add to that the tone of the show, which is just not something that I’d seen on TV with demon hunting and certainly has a sense of humor about itself. And then you add to that the music and the Appalachian world with a southern gothic overtone. There was a lot of cool s–t thrown into there that I responded to,” he told TheWrap.

Showrunner Erik Oleson said the show’s unique mash-up of genres of horror, family dramedy and comedy provided a lot of opportunities to write something where “you don’t know whether you’re going to laugh out loud.”

“It allows you to create a show that’s surprising and hopefully takes the tropes that we all know and love and turns them upside down and completely makes you look at each other with a big ‘what the f–k’ grin on your face and say, ‘What are we watching? This is fun!’” Oleson teased. “And then, occasionally, you throw in Kevin Bacon putting a chainsaw through some demon’s face.”

When we meet Halloran, he’s been estranged from his wife Maryanne (Jennifer Nettles) and son Cade (Maxwell Jenkins) and is living in his mother (Beth Grant) Kitty’s garage after a failed music career.

“I really love the juxtaposition of being this badass bounty hunter in this small town, with how childlike Hub is in a lot of ways,” Bacon said. “He is way too close to his mother for a man of this age. That he lives in her garage, that he has not been able to make his marriage or his music career or his relationship to his son work, I thought that was an interesting character and I really wanted to lean into that.”

To make matters worse, Maryanne has entered into a new relationship with Lucky (Damon Herriman), a mobster from Boston with whom she falls in love while coming to collect on a debt he’s owed.

“He decides that his redemption is going to be looking after Hub Halloran’s family, his estranged wife and kid, and providing them the life that would never be afforded to them by Hub,” Oleson explained. “So you’ve got this complicated love triangle where there’s this guy who’s trying to break good after a life of crime in the Boston mob. He found AA and he’s trying to be good. And it just so happens that his girlfriend has the ex from hell. Lucky provided a real comic rudder, as well as foil to Hub in his need to patch things up with his family.”

In the opening minutes of the series, Halloran quite literally becomes the ex from hell when Lucky has him murdered. However, Hub is subsequently resurrected by the Devil with one mission: to trap and send back demons that have escaped from the prison of hell.

Despite being given a second chance at life, love and country music, that task adds more pressure to an already complicated family dynamic.

“For better or for worse, he kind of drags his family into this. He’s a man that’s made some very serious mistakes. In the past, he’s made serious mistakes in terms of his marriage, his music career that he was just so stubborn about that he couldn’t even embrace the fact that his wife was maybe onto something in terms of going to Nashville and working with a big producer. His heart’s in the right place, but he probably hasn’t been that great a father to his only child,” Bacon added. “He’s got blood on his hands. So there’s a lot of guilt and a lot of regret.”

“The Bondsman” comes from Blumhouse Television, Marker 96 and CrimeThink Production Company. In addition to Bacon and Oleson, the series is executive produced by Paul E. Shapiro and creator Grainger David. Erik Holmberg serves as co-executive producer.

All episodes of “The Bondsman” are available to stream now on Prime Video.

The post Kevin Bacon Says ‘Bondsman’ Hub Halloran Is a Badass, Childlike Bounty Hunter: ‘He’s Got Blood on His Hands’ appeared first on TheWrap.