02
Episode
02 / 06
02 / 06
Aaron Vance
Casting Director · Manhattan
Six conversations between a stranger and the actor at the center of the universe. We’re testing whether pleasant persistence works — in real time, on the record.
The math says any two people on Earth are connected by an average of about six relationships. The folklore version, attached to Kevin Bacon since a 1994 college dorm conversation, says it specifically about him. He liked the idea enough to spin it into SixDegrees.org.
We’re running it as an experiment. I’m starting from zero — no agent, no shared zip code, no warm intro. Each episode I sit down with whoever the last guest recommended. They tell me about their work. Then they help me get to whoever’s next.
If pleasant persistence is a real strategy and not just a thing I tell myself at parties, the sixth conversation is with Kevin Bacon. If it isn’t, the show is a record of how it failed and where.
“The whole show works only if every guest is interesting on their own — before the hand-off matters.” — Six to Bacon, the rule
A working casting director on the unwritten rules of who you can call cold and who you absolutely cannot. Plus: the moment he agreed to recommend the next guest.
A real interview, not a hand-off transaction. We talk about their actual work — the show only earns its ending if every middle is worth listening to.
Toward the end, on tape: who do you know that gets us closer? They pick. They make the introduction. The cold email becomes a warm one.
Hybrid release: we record, edit, and ship while the next booking is still in motion. The audience finds out at the same speed I do.
“The kind of podcast that justifies its own gimmick by episode two — because the gimmick was never the point.”— Renée O., Brooklyn
“You think it’s a chase show. It’s actually about how strangers extend each other small kindnesses for no reason at all.”— Newsletter subscriber, week 3
“I keep telling people about it the way you tell people about a long con you’re rooting for.”— Listener email, after Ep. 02