There are few couples that I love as much as Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon. Kevin and Kyra have been together for 23 years! And they’re still going strong, through thick and thin, through career ups and downs, through financial disasters (they invested with Bernie Madoff), through parenthood and so much more. These are photos of the Sedgwick-Bacon clan in Hawaii over the holidays, where they were vacationing with their kids, Sosi (19) and Travis (22).

Can we talk about Kevin and Kyra’s bodies for a second? Kevin still has it, doesn’t he? He looks fit and sexy, and he’s 53 years old! He must be a vampire! That’s what I kept thinking when I saw him in X-Men: First Class – how does he still look so young?!?!? Incidentally, I’ve seen a lot of movies this year, and X-Men: First Class is still one of my favorites, one of my top films of the year. Kevin was really good in it – an unexpectedly delicious villain.

As for Kyra – she’s 46 years old, and I hope to look this good at her age. You can tell that she takes care of herself, and I like that she doesn’t look starved or ropey. She looks like she enjoys eating, and she works out. Incidentally, whenever I’m reading “Best of” lists, I’m always surprised that The Closer doesn’t make it onto more critics’ “Best of” lists. TNT just aired the final episodes of 2011, and I have to wait until next summer for this season to end. This last season of The Closer has been awesome, and there have been a lot of payoffs for long-term fans of the show. Kyra doesn’t get enough credit for being the center of this amazing show. Gah! What will I do without The Closer? What will SHE do without The Closer?

Photos courtesy of Pacific Coast News.

Yes, Scarlett Johansson is still promoting her role as a zookeeper in We Bought a Zoo. I’ve heard so much about that movie that it feels like it should’ve come out ages ago, but no, the release date is still December 23. Anyway, Scarlett sat down with NY Mag to discuss more about the movie, and something amusing actually happened. Scar admitted that she intentionally gave her character a wide-legged stance so that her portrayal would be taken more seriously. Did I just really type that? Like, in order to play this character “full of conviction,” Scar felt it necessary to spread her legs. Those are the makings of a real actress, I guess:

On Her Zoo Character’s Wide-Legged Stance: I wanted that character to be full of conviction – and in order to be full of conviction, you have to be [pause] full of conviction, or it doesn’t work. I think part of that was the physicality of the role. It was this salt of the Earth, feet on the ground, ready to just solve the problem as it comes at you [character]. There’s something a little bit “in your own skin” about it, and I think that’s just the kind of stance she adopts.

On Whether She Prefer’s Animals Or Humans: I take humans most of the time, but I have to say that occasionally sitting on the couch with the dog, you’re just like, “Man, you’re the best company. This is bliss.” Just the dog and a nice old movie and you’re good to go. But yeah, people. I take people.

On Getting Tired Of Seductress Roles: I think that as I get older, I’m now looking at roles that move away from that kind of ingénue mold and are more based on women that are experienced and have had life before the point you find them in. That’s refreshing for me. It’s nice to be able to kind of transition into that. I feel like for me, right now, I don’t wanna take on any roles that aren’t challenging in some way. I never wanna play something I’ve done before. I wanna be able to just have everything be hard in some way. Otherwise, what’s the point?

On Her Upcoming Directing Gig, Summer Crossing: It’s a project I’ve been developing for five or six years. I’m writing it right now with Tristine Skyler, so we’ll see. You have a script and then you take it out and finance it. It’s a big preproduction process, but that’s where my focus is.

[From NY Mag Vulture]

Obviously, Scarlett really wants to be a director, but I honestly don’t see the project that she mentioned happening anytime soon. A few years ago, someone in power had the bright idea to let Scarlett helm a segment of New York, I Love You, but her portion ended up on the editing room floor instead of making it into the final cut, which is a shame because it was the one part of the movie that starred Kevin Bacon.

Just for kicks, here’s a video clip of Scarlett’s segment. A director, she is not.

Photos courtesy of Fame and WENN

Here are some new photos of Kevin Bacon and his lovely wife Kyra Sedgwick at an event for the environmental organization, Global Green. Doesn’t Kevin look awesome? I’m in love with The Bacon all over again, just because I saw X-Men: First Class this weekend, and now I can barely function because I’m brimming over with Bacon, Fassbender and McAvoy love. So here are my thoughts on X-Men: First Class.

The basic story is how The X-Men formed as a group in 1960s. I was expecting lots of great Fassbender (Magneto) and McAvoy (Prof. X) one-on-one scenes, but that barely happened. Instead, I got a really wonderful 1960s-style action-adventure-spy film, with sci-fi mutants as sort-of CIA assets/agents. It was AWESOME. It was like an old-school James Bond movie, only James Bond is a Holocaust survivor who spends his time hunting former Nazis. And James Bond can do sh-t with metal when he gets angry.

Which brings me to Fassbender and The Bacon. I was slightly disappointed that there wasn’t as much James McAvoy as I was expecting, but they made up for it by making My Beloved Fassbender (Erik/Magento) the de facto lead. His story line drove the plot, and his scenes were the most exciting, in my opinion. He doesn’t speak English for the first part of the film, instead trying out his French, German and Spanish. It was awesome. There’s a part where he’s sitting across from a Swiss banker, speaking French and wearing an incredible beautiful suit and I actually squealed. Then there’s a part where he comes out of the water and I said, out loud in the middle of the theater, “Jesus Christ, HE’S WET NOW.” His ginger is incredible, his face is beautiful, and his acting is AMAZING. He really killed this role. He cries in a few scenes, and it’s like emotional porn. I wanted to lick his tears away and ride Magneto dong.

As for The Bacon… he was “the villain,” a former Nazi doctor who was “on the run” internationally, working his own global agenda. It was a different kind of role for The Bacon, and he killed it too. At the beginning, where he’s all Nazi-fied, he has this little mustache and he’s speaking German, and you realize “Damn, The Bacon can ACT.” I hope this is another opportunity for producers and directors to see him in a different kind of role and realize that he really can do ANY part.

Other favorite parts: Jennifer Lawrence is really, really pretty, and it was cool seeing Mystique as a little girl and as a young woman, trying to figure her life out. I enjoyed the hell out of Nicholas Hoult too – he really is a severely beautiful young man. There’s also this funky, funny ginger kid named Caleb Landry Jones who plays Banshee, and he’s just wonderful. Great comic relief, very goofy-sweet. My least favorite parts were the two weak links in the film: Zoe Kravitz and January Jones. Neither of them were ACTIVELY bad, but they weren’t good either.

Basically, this is one of the best films of the year, no doubt. I liked it more than anything I’ve seen in months and months. I made my mom see it because I’ve been talking about Fassbender for so long, and she wanted to see what the fuss was about. She likes traditional romantic comedies and British stuff, but she LOVED this film.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

With the impending arrival of X-Men: First Class, there has definitely been an influx of Kevin Bacon-related publicity that we haven’t seen since the days of Footloose. Interpret that however you will, but it can never be a bad thing to hear more about an actor who doesn’t suffer from the disease of specialness. This particular story, however, is both amusing and bittersweet; it seems that, once upon a time, Bacon had enough of the trappings of fame and made arrangements to disappear for a while or, at least, for a few hours at a time behind a disguise. Fortunately, the results were not to his liking:

A couple of years ago, Kevin Bacon needed a few degrees of separation from his fame. He daydreamed of a crowded place where people didn’t tug at his sleeve to gush about Footloose or quote Diner. Finally, he went to a Hollywood makeup specialist and invested in a custom-made disguise that was weirdly simple but completely effective. He paid the $500 and then, with an anxious glee, he took his new rubber face to the Grove shopping center to experience an afternoon without autographs.

“You wouldn’t have recognized me if I was standing next to you,” Bacon said with a faraway expression. “It was really bizarre and I didn’t really like it. I didn’t like it at all. People cut in front of you and when you’re at a check-out counter it’s just … different. People weren’t all that nice to me. I’m just not used to it.”

Sitting in a quiet corner of a Brentwood restaurant, the actor shook his head, perhaps surprised at his own candor and then laughed at himself. “I can’t imagine life without it,” he added, referring to fame, which started to come his way after he left moved to New York at age 18 to pursue theater. On screen he found foothold roles in Animal House in 1978 and on “The Guiding Light” in the early 1980s and, eventually, so many movies that they invented a game about it.

[James] McAvoy said the presence of Bacon on the set added a crackle to the production. “I don’t use this term but it just seems right — Kevin Bacon is just a cool cat. For me, as a moviegoer, if you tell me Kevin Bacon is playing a villain in a summer superhero movie, I’m there man. I’’ be excited, too, to see a film that is bold enough to go with that unexpected choice.”

For an actor with credits such as Mystic River, Apollo 13, The Woodsman, Frost/Nixon and A Few Good Men, stepping into a superhero film wasn’t going to happen unless there was a compelling reason. He cited the presence of producer Bryan Singer and director Matthew Vaughn and the chance to play a dark character who wants the world to burn but rarely raises his voice as his reasons for joining the mutant franchise.

“I haven’t been this guy before,” said Bacon, who studied years of comic books after taking on the role. “He’s a little bit Ted Turner, a little bit Hugh Hefner, a little bit Donald Trump. That’s how I see him. I wasn’t interested in him as scary evil. It was more about control. His power is a metaphor for who he is; he can be different things to different people and he also takes whatever energy you have and throws it back at you.”

[From Hero Complex]

The Bacon nearly left us! For some reason, I’m dying to know what this disguise looked like, but I guess we’ll never know unless Bacon decides to cart it along during his next visit to the Late Show with David Letterman. Bacon’s description of the Sebastian Shaw character only makes me want to see this movie more than I already did, which is really kind of embarrassing since I didn’t enjoy the other X-Men movies at all.

It’s also rather interesting that McAvoy popped into this interview as well; while he had nothing but insightful things to say about Bacon, he’s really doing a lot of the talking on this publicity tour, but I always figured him as the socially-awkward and retiring type instead of, you know, poor, shy Michael Fassbender.

Photos courtesy of WENN and AllMoviePhoto

Aw, I love some Kevin Bacon. I’ve been so focused on Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy during the promotion of X-Men: First Class, and I’ve been ignoring The Bacon. He was interviewed in the new issue of Details, and… I just like the guy. He seems like he would be fun to hang with. He seems grounded – he and Kyra both. In this Details piece (full interview here), he talks mostly about his first comic book-adaptation gig, but he also gives some quotes about his 20-year marriage (amazing!) and Bernie Madoff.

DETAILS: You’ve played a lot of bad guys, most recently in the comic-book satire Super and the latest X-Men movie. What’s so great about going to the dark side?
Kevin Bacon: I never go, “Oh, I want to do it because he’s the bad guy.” I can’t stand badly written bad guys or guys who are just miserable pricks. The character in Super is just such a sociopath, I found it amusing. And Jean-Claude Van Damme had been offered the part. To pick up Jean-Claude Van Damme’s rejects was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

DETAILS: How did X-Men come to you?
Kevin Bacon: Totally out of the f-cking blue. I didn’t even know they were making the movie. I was in L.A. and they called me up: “Drive over to the Fox lot. You’re going to have to sit in the office and read. And you can’t take it with you. If you want it, it’s yours.” It was the office of one of the executives on the movie, and his secretary was there. She handed me the script. After I read it, she said, “Whatdja think?” [Laughs]

DETAILS: Was a comic-book franchise something you’d always wanted to do?
Kevin Bacon: I don’t either seek out a genre, nor do I limit myself to a genre. If someone came to me today and said, “It’s a horror movie, but it’s a really f-ckin’ good horror movie and it’s a great part,” I’d be there. I’ve done horror movies. The only thing that I’d done that came close to being a comic book was Hollow Man, in that it was an effects-driven movie.

DETAILS: You’ve lived in New York City your entire career. Has that helped or hurt you?
Kevin Bacon: I couldn’t have done it any other way. I got here at 17—suitcase and a dream—and thought, “Okay, now I feel at peace.” When you live in a place that’s so industry-driven like L.A., your own self-worth sometimes will be determined by the factors that are always in your face—the posters, the waiter with the script to give you. It’s been nice to have a buffer. I was a real pussy about L.A. for a long time. I was like, “I’m afraid. I don’t know how to get anywhere. I don’t like to drive.” And I can still fall into that. The downside is when someone says, “You’ve got 10 minutes to get over to the studio because they want to meet you.” Not living in L.A. is a dumbass move from a career standpoint.

DETAILS: You’ve made a lot of unpredictable career moves, like poking fun of yourself as the world’s biggest Kevin Bacon fan in the current Logitech campaign. Is there a plan?
Kevin Bacon: People come up with these rules. “You can only do commercials that run in Japan and Europe.” F-ck you! Who made that law? After Footloose I was on a sort of downslide, and my people were recommending that I only do movies when my name was above the title. But I had an agent who said, “Let’s do JFK,” and that’s what we did. Four days of work. Was not even close to being my movie.

DETAILS: Is there one of your movies that you like best?
Keving Bacon: I don’t know if this is a cheeseball thing to say, but I don’t watch my movies. So they become personal bookmarks for other things. When I think of Tremors, in a very short amount of time I’ve gotten engaged, gotten married, my mother’s gotten cancer, my career is in the sh-tter, my wife is nine months pregnant with our first child, and I am terrified. That’s Tremors.

DETAILS: You once said that it’s easy to get laid when you’re famous. Is it harder to stay married to the same woman—Kyra Sedgwick—for more than two decades?
Kevin Bacon: It’s hard to explain, other than to say I like being married to her. I like spending time with her. We have found the right person to be with. I do think that, as a guy, if you never get a chance to experience more than one partner, that’s going to be a really tough road. Luckily, I did.

DETAILS: The two of you lost a lot of money in the Madoff scandal. What was that experience like?
Kevin Bacon: I’m not going to say it didn’t have its emotional downsides. But we’re both young, and we both had the ability to work and roll up our sleeves and start putting the pieces back together. The truth is that we went through it together.

DETAILS: Did it have any impact on your professional decisions?
Kevin Bacon: Yeah, I think so. While I try to have integrity about the work that I do and the choices I make, I’ve also said from a very young age that I need to work. I don’t think I suffer from the disease of specialness.

[From Details]

I can’t even describe how much I love that quote – “I don’t think I suffer from the disease of specialness.” That should be the anthem, the motto of every working actor. I love him so much. And you know what? Tremors is totally an enjoyable movie! It’s so cheesy and wonderful and delightfully low-budget.

Sigh… MORE BACON.

Photos courtesy of WENN and Details Magazine.

Thankfully, the studio behind X-Men: First Class has realized that January “Deep-Thinking Diamond” Jones alone will not sell their movie, so they’re giving a little something to the ladies by sending out Michael Fassbender to do some publicity rounds. The gracious and lovely Fassdong (yes Kaiser, he still belongs to you, but I’m allowed a few conjugal visits on occasion) has responded in kind by speaking upon all sorts of topics concerning to not only his own character, Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto, but also things that are particularly relative to Professor Charles Xavier/Dr. X (James McAvoy) and Dr. Shaw (Kevin Bacon). Fassdong also takes great care to praise the previous work of Ian McKellen as Magneto while asserting his own decision “to paint a new canvas” with his role, which immediately makes me think of Fassbender rolling around in body paint just like Farrah Fawcett did for Playboy. As you can see, Fassbender posts are a quickly becoming danger to me, so let’s just add an obligatory SPOILER ALERT here and swiftly move onto a titillating overview of the movie’s hot mutant sex as revealed to IGN:

IGN: James McAvoy was talking about Charles and Erik being like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X in their approach to the problem of humans and mutants living side-by-side – would you agree with that?

Fassbender: If that’s what he said, then yeah, I like it. That sounds good. It’s actually a good way to summarise it. But also, I think that Charles is just horny, and just trying to get laid. Throughout the film. He’s like ‘human beings are cool, give them a chance’ because he just wants to have human being sex. He doesn’t want to have mutant sex. Whereas Eric really gets off on mutant sex.

IGN: So is there any romance for Erik in this film?

Fassbender: You know, there are seeds of something there, but once again, he is so driven. He’s blinkered. It’s like, there is Shaw in his sights, and that is all he is really going for.

You know, the Fassdong should never be allowed to speak any derivative of “seed” lest he spontaneously father an entire generation of mutant babies. Wait, where were we again?

IGN: Was there a scene when you got the script that you were particularly excited to shoot?

Fassbender: For sure, but I don’t want to give too much of the story away. There were two scenes. One’s fairly early in the film, when you are introduced to him and he’s on this sort of hunt. He’s on a trail blaze of Nazi killing. He’s trying to tighten the screws to pinpoint where Shaw is.

IGN: Why is he after Shaw?

Fassbender: Shaw had him in these concentration camps and as we know, the Nazis were doing lots of experimentation – all sorts of things, like measuring skull and brain size and running experiments on human beings. So Shaw is trying to unleash this power in him – he’s recognized that he can manipulate metal and so we catch up with Erik on a quest to hunt him down.

IGN: So what should we expect from Kevin Bacon as Shaw?

Fassbender: You’ve got an actor who finds the truth in everything he does and has just a wealth of experience. I don’t know how many – 70-something films that he’s done, you know? It’s great to see that sort of person has survived in the business for so long and is really nice and easy to talk to and just wants to get the job done. Trying to find the truth in the scenes. Because that’s the thing – it is a fantastical world but you want the illusion, the bubble, to remain intact as much as it can. I don’t know if I’m explaining myself very well, but everything in the story is there for a reason. A component is not just there as filler – each thing is there to drive the next thing and interlink to maybe three scenes later. It’s just trying to find those things within a scene… we work through each scene and figure out if there are any weak points or things that we really like and need to accentuate. And with the relationship between Charles and Erik – how do you get the best juices out of that relationship?

[From IGN]

See, there he goes again with “juices.” Quite simply, the Fassdong doesn’t know his own strength, but he does drop the little detail that there might be second and third First Class movies if the first one succeeds with the geek crowd. If that happens, the Fassdong plans on returning (and, quite suggestively, intends on coming in at “ground level”) just to give us another reason beyond James McAvoy to watch this drivel. I’ll be totally honest here in that I never read the X-Men comics and (like a great many others) really disliked the preexisting installments of this franchise. Although, I definitely appreciate that the Fassdong has continued the Nazi-hunting legacy that he previously forged in Inglourious Basterds, and I’ll watch anything that he does. I would even watch him watching paint dry on a wall. So good job, Marvel Studios, for I’m sold!

Photos courtesy of WENN, Entertainment Weekly, NYT.

These are new photos of Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon on holiday in Miami on Tuesday. They went for a walk on the beach together. I find both of them adorable – they’ve been married 22 YEARS. For the love of God. And you know what else I love? That Kyra isn’t all tricked out in jeggings for this little outing. She’s got an incredible figure, as I learned from watching The Closer. She has an exceptionally cute butt, but you wouldn’t know it from how she doesn’t trick herself out for casual outings. I love that.

Kevin recently sat down with PopEater to discuss his favorite Christmas memory, and of course it involved his bride. They are just too cute together:

Kevin Bacon has a lot to be thankful for this holiday season.

A critically acclaimed career, a charity that connects people with over one million philanthropic organizations and a much admired marriage to actress Kyra Sedgwick are just a few of the accomplishments Bacon can boast.

After almost 20 years of marriage and two children, Bacon recounts his favorite Christmas memory and it’s nothing short of romantic.

“I proposed to my wife on Christmas Eve and I put the ring in the toe of the stocking. Shockingly, she said yes,” the actor laughed.

[From PopEater]

So sweet. Also, for all of us Closer-loonies (what up, bitches?), sadly, Kyra leaving the series next year. Since the show is built on her (she is “the closer”), I think that means the end of the show. Truly unfortunate, because it’s one of the best cop shows out there, if not one of the best ever. Great writing, great acting, great crimes. I really wish Kyra wasn’t quitting this bitch, but I hope other networks and cable stations take note of The Closer’s success and try for more female-driven cop shows.

Photos courtesy of Fame.

Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon are one of Hollywood’s most stable and likable couples. You hardly hear anything about them because there’s not much to gossip about – they seem to have a loving relationship and a happy family. They’ve been married for over 20 years and have two children, Travis, 19, and Sosie, 17.

Unfortunately Kyra and Kevin got quite a bit of press late last year when the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme came to light. They were among thousands of other high net worth individuals who were bilked in Madoff’s massive investment scam.

In January, Kevin talked about losing his investments in general terms, and seemed to suggest that he and Kyra were financially wiped out. He said “There are a lot of things I’m grateful for: my health, my family, my career, my family’s health. Things could be worse.” He added that he was looking for a job and needed “to work, for obvious reasons.” It was known that he and Kyra had some real estate, but it was thought that they weren’t left with much.

Now Kyra has broken her silence on the issue, and she maintains that they weren’t financially ruined, but admits they did lose “hard earned money”:

Kyra Sedgwick and her actor-husband, Kevin Bacon, managed to stay out of the gossip pages until they were among the many victims of the massive Ponzi scheme run by financier Bernard Madoff.

“I think the interesting thing about it was that I always thought, `We’re so boring. We should be in the tabloids more. C’mon honey, let’s have a scandal,’” the 43-year-old actress said.

“Well, it wasn’t the truth that we were destroyed,” Sedgwick said in a recent conference call from New York. “And I think when you say `no comment,’ that’s, of course, where they’re going to go, because it’s fun and it grabs headlines and people will be more interested.”

“It’s been really unpleasant and makes you feel really vulnerable. But the fact of the matter is that we did not lose everything,” she said. “We lost hard-earned money that we worked very hard for that was what we thought in a safe place. It’s painful but a lot of people lost a lot more. And we have a lot of things to be grateful for in our life, and we never ever forget that.”

[From AP via Huffington Post]

I like how Kevin and Kyra put things in perspective and seem genuinely grateful for the good things they’ve received in life. They seem like good people who deserve to have a comfortable and happy life. It looks like they’ve found it, even as they lost some material things along the way.

Kyra Sedgwick is shown getting her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on 6/8/09. Credit: WENN.com

While being famous comes with its perks, avoiding crime isn’t one of them. At least not for Kevin Bacon. On Thursday morning Bacon was in a subway station on 7th Avenue and 53rd Street when a thief snatched his Blackberry. Not one to just take thievery of electronics laying down, Bacon took off after the bandit – in what I imagine/hope was a very dramatic, action movie-esque chase. Unfortunately he lost the guy in the crowd, and now some formerly powerless loser has access to many of the most powerful numbers in Hollywood.

Kevin Bacon wasn’t footloose enough. The Hollywood star tried to chase down a thug who swiped his BlackBerry at a Seventh Avenue subway station Thursday, sources told The Post. The brazen mugger managed to escape and was at large yesterday.

Now the thief is a lot less than six degrees of separation away from a coveted cache of A-list celebrities and boldface names likely programmed into Bacon’s ‘Berry. The robber boldly swiped the “Footloose” star’s cell at 10:50 a.m. Thursday at the B, D and E station at 53rd Street and Seventh Avenue, sources said. Bacon didn’t give up the BlackBerry easily. The star took off after the crook, but lost track of him as he raced through the station’s crowd, the sources said.

The numbers for Bacon’s wife, Kyra Sedgwick — who plays a cunning detective on the hit TV drama “The Closer” — is no doubt stored in the phone, possibly along with dozens of other box- office stars who have graced the big screen with Bacon.

But this isn’t the first time Bacon was robbed. He and Sedgwick were swindled by Ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff, who pleaded guilty to running a $65 billion fraud in March. NYC Transit officials said no subway personnel were told about the crime, although sources said Bacon did call police. NYPD officials couldn’t confirm yesterday that a report was filed concerning the robbery.

[From Page Six]

I was going to start off this article by saying that one of the perks of being famous is that in terms of money, it’s no big deal to replace your stolen Blackberry. But I’d forgotten about Bacon being one of Bernie Madoff’s victims. So replacing the Blackberry might be a big deal after all. This is ripe for a bunch of “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” jokes. In fact it sort of hurts not to make them. Bacon’s Blackberry is like the digital crib sheet for that game.

I can’t help but wonder if Bacon was specifically targeted, or if the thief had no idea who he was. In all likelihood I’d bet the guy was just focused on the Blackberry. And many celebs – especially men – look completely normal in average surroundings. Somehow I wouldn’t be expecting to see Kevin Bacon in the subway station. It probably was a random crime – and I’m guessing the mugger is too dumb to figure out what he’s got anyway.

Here’s Kevin Bacon at the Sundance Film Festival in January. Images thanks to Fame Pictures .

Kevin Bacon is on promotional duties for Taking Chance, an HBO film based on a true story of a military escort officer bringing a fallen soldier home. Casting Kevin Bacon was a smart choice – he’s played military characters several times before, and the role offers the kind of profound drama that a great, under-rated actor like Bacon will do well with. In this OK!intervew, Kevin also talks about his love of his wife Kyra and their 20-year marriage:

On the latest Bacon Brothers CD, New Year’s Day, Kevin Bacon sings the praises of his wife, Kyra Sedgwick, 43.

“I took the inspirational things she’s said to me that are her life’s mottos and wrote them into song,” the father of two, 50, told OK! at the Feb. 24 Musicians On Call event in NYC. The result was “Kikko’s Song.”

The couple, who have been happily married for 20 years (amazing by Hollywood’s standards) tells OK! that the secret to their wedded bliss is “We like each other’s company,” Kevin says.

Meanwhile, Bacon has taken on a new role in HBO’s Taking Chance. Based on real-life events, the actor plays Lt. Col. Michael Strobl, a volunteer military escort officer who accompanies the body of 19-year old Marine Chance Phelps back to his home. It’s something the actor recently says hit home.

“You know, I’ve got a son of my own and it’s – it’s almost kind of unthinkable (to deal with that kind of loss), and yet they have a certain, a real strength and a grace and kind of elegance about them that’s really inspirational,” he says.

From OK! Magazine

I saw the original “version” of Taking Chance when it was part of the PBS documentary series America at a Crossroads: Operation Homecoming, Writing the Wartime Experience. In its original form it was a short (under 20 minutes, if I remember correctly) vignette written by Lt. Col. Strobl. Taking Chance was one of the most beautiful and moving stories in a excellent group of real stories, poetry and short films of the war and home front, as told by the soldiers. Lt. Col. Strobl told of delivering the body of Chance Phelps to the small town of Riverton, Wyoming. Strobl’s description of the quiet dignity of the town, the grief of the family, and the effect of one fallen soldier’s funeral in one community is devastating. I’ve linked to the PBS transcripts, and if you need a good cry, read any or all of the stories.

Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon are shown on 3/8/09. Credit: PRPhotos