Kevin Bacon reveals key to maintaining one of Hollywood’s longest lasting marriages
Kevin Bacon has just clocked 32 years of marriage with his wife, Kyra Sedgwick. He reveals what’s kept them together as we look back at other stars whose relationships have stood the test of time.
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When Kevin Bacon’s actor and writer wife, Kyra Sedgwick came to him with the idea of setting a horror movie around a marriage, it paid not to take the suggestion personally.
Celebrating their 32-year wedding anniversary earlier this month, the Hollywood power couple are not only creative partners – working on a short film right now – but a unicorn union in an industry that can test relationships at every turn.
Throw a pandemic into the mix, and Bacon tells The BINGE Guide, even he has been shocked that the global crisis and confines of quarantine have brought him closer to his Closer star wife than ever before.
“Since we met, this is the longest time we have spent together by far … ever, ever, ever,” he says, with delight, “and it’s going great.”
Offering up private details of his home life without prompting, Bacon is clearly still besotted.
“I escaped for three days recently … I kinda went off the grid without her … and you know, I missed her. I was kind of surprised about that,” he chuckles.
With equal parts pragmatism and romance, he is the first to say there is no single secret he can share, no celebrity insight that would explain with any real honesty why their marriage has worked as well as it has without acknowledging the work they have both put into it.
“I just can’t answer that question because it reduces everything to one line,” he says, “and it’s just not that easy.”
Sharing their passion for the arts is an obvious touch stone, but so too are practical tips like alone time, he explains.
“A lot of people don’t have the luxury to do this, because you can be stuck in one room together,” Bacon says, adding, “which I can’t even imagine … but even going off with some headphones and finding ways to be alone, together is important.”
Respecting her space – and sleep – was captured beautiful in a recent Instagram video he posted, which saw him whispering his way through a lesson on how to slice a mango, as Sedgwick slept soundly upstairs.
Of course, his fans lapped up the effortlessly seductive clip, turning something fairly benign into a viral sensation.
During lockdown in their Los Angeles home, Bacon explains, “we meet for meals, basically, of which there are many,” he laughs.
On a recent episode of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Kimmel he shared the comic’s quip that “wearing pants at one stage in the day” also helped to keep a happy home.
But, as Bacon reveals, Sedgwick has taken that a few steps further, dressing for her part in this domestic tableau … with up to five ‘costume’ changes a day.
“I’ll tell you what they are,” he offers up.
“She comes downstairs in whatever the pyjamas are, then changes into her exercise clothes. She gets out of her exercise clothes and puts on her work clothes and those will be the same clothes for lunch,” he explains.
“Then she will generally, after work, because she’s doing a lot of writing at the moment, she’ll change into something else for dinner. She always dresses up for dinner and then, after that, she comes down for television in what we call her ‘groutfit’” which he says is “a grey outfit, like wearing the Qantas pyjamas they give you. And then she gets back into her nightgown to sleep.”
He admits she’s doing the “heavy lifting” when it comes to keeping up appearances in the relationship, adding: “I don’t change. I mean, I wear clothes to work out but other than that it’s the same outfit, all day, every day.”
Sexless sweatpants aside, it’s easy to see how this leading man has charmed his way to such a successful career, spanning 40-plus years.
But as he recently revealed, it was almost over before it began in 1984, when a female studio boss rejected producers’ plans to cast him in Footloose, on the basis she thought he wasn’t “f*ckable enough.”
Having the confidence to prove her wrong and forge his way ahead – earning critical acclaim in many of his 70 movies, including The River Wild, A Few Good Men and Apollo 13.
His latest role in You Should Have Left, playing Theo Conroy, a paranoid husband with a dark past, may not appear to be the kind of likeable characters we’ve come to expect from Bacon; but his performance is every bit as watchable as his other credits.
Filmed in Wales two years ago and co-starring Amanda Seyfreid, the movie taps into the #metoo movement and the issues arising from people’s digital footprints.
For Bacon, one of the good guys of Hollywood, it was fascinating to explore questions around redemption and forgiveness.
“How do you deal with the guilt of things you’ve done in your past that come back to haunt you?” he asks.
“Are you able to find forgiveness? Is that a possibility today? And is your self the first person that needs to be forgiven, or the last? These things were all great fodder to explore.”
He also plays bad as coke-snorting, casually racist FBI agent, Jackie Rohr, in high-end crime drama, City On A Hill [streaming, Stan], which was forced to suspend production of season 2 in March because of coronavirus.
The death of George Floyd and the protests which have unfolded since, Bacon says, have already made him rethink the character and the show’s role in the cultural debate on racism.
“When we go back to work, it’s going to feel a lot different, I think. The subjects we’re talking about … let’s put it this way, it’s going to feel different to me.”
His hope for his country and the conversion on these polarising issues is for change.
“I love our country, I’m not planning on moving anywhere,” he explains, “ but I think we can do better … a lot better. All I can do is hope that there’s some learning, some listening and some understanding that comes out of this difficult time.”
* You Should Have Left available on DVD/BluRay from Wednesday, September 23.
LONG-LASTING HOLLYWOOD RELATIONSHIPS
TOM HANKS AND RITA WILSON
MARRIED FOR: 32 YEARS
Actors Hanks and Wilson initially met in 1981 on the set of TV comedy Bosom Buddies and reconnected again in 1985 on the set of Volunteers. Hanks was married at the time but divorced in 1987, marrying Wilson in 1988.
QUIRKY FACT: Hanks converted to the Greek Orthodox Church, Wilson’s church, before the two married.
GOLDIE HAWN AND KURT RUSSELL
TOGETHER FOR: 37 YEARS
One of Hollywood’s most enduring romances, the two screen icons have been together since 1983, but never walked down the aisle. Hawn has said the reason their relationship is strong as “we have done just perfectly without marrying”.
QUIRKY FACT: Hawn and Russell first met on a film set in the 1960s when she was 21 and he was 16. “I thought he was adorable, but he was much too young,” she said. “Then, years later we met up again...”
HUGH JACKMAN AND DEBORRA-LEE FURNESS
MARRIED FOR: 24 YEARS
The two Aussies are still going strong after meeting in the early 1990s on the set of crime drama Correlli where Furness was the star and a young pre-fame Jackman had a guest role.
On screen attraction spilled into real life and they married in Melbourne in 1996, later adopting two children, Oscar and Ava.
QUIRKY FACT: Of that infamous Correlli meeting, Jackman played a prison inmate who flirted and fell for Furness’ character, prison psychologist, Louisa Correlli. The rest is history.
BONO AND ALI HEWSON
MARRIED FOR: 38 YEARS
The U2 legend met his future wife at school in Dublin in 1973 when she was just 12 and he was 13. They married in 1982 and have four children. One of music’s longest-lasting unions.
QUIRKY FACT: Ali Hewson was a year behind Bono at school, but she was in the same class as his future U2 bandmate, The Edge.
JADA PINKETT-SMITH AND WILL SMITH
MARRIED FOR: 23 YEARS
Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith met on the set of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air in 1994. Smith was married at the time, but later separated from his wife. The couple married in 1997.
QUIRKY FACT: In June, it was revealed Pinkett-Smith had a brief relationship with 28-year-old rapper August Alsina, while separated from Smith (a split which had not been made public). The couple has since repaired their relationship.
DAVID BECKHAM AND VICTORIA BECKHAM
MARRIED FOR: 21 YEARS
The soccer star and the then-Spice Girl started dating in 1997, becoming Britain’s most famous couple and a tabloid staple. In 1999, the couple wed and Brand Beckham is now a combined billion-dollar business.
QUIRKY FACT: David Beckham first spotted Victoria during a Spice Girls TV performance. He told his mate, fellow soccer star Gary Neville, that he was going to “marry her one day”.
KIRK DOUGLAS AND ANNE BUYDENS
MARRIED FOR: 65 YEARS (until Douglas’ death in February)
The couple met in Paris in 1951, later marrying in 1954. They had one of Hollywood’s most enduring marriages and were together until Douglas’ death in February at the age of 103.
QUIRKY FACT: Anne Buydens fled her native Germany to escape Nazism, moving to Paris where she later met her movie star husband.
DENZEL WASHINGTON AND PAULETTA PEARSON
MARRIED FOR: 37 YEARS
Denzel Washington met his wife Pauletta in 1977 on the set of his first screen gig, Wilma. The couple married in 1983 and have four children.
QUIRKY FACT: Pauletta turned down Denzel the first time he asked her to marry him.
MERYL STREEP AND DON GUMMER
MARRIED FOR: 42 YEARS
The three-time Oscar winner met and married sculptor Gummer in 1978, six months after she lost her boyfriend actor John Cazale to lung cancer. They have four children together.
QUIRKY FACT: After Cazale’s death, Streep was being kicked out of their shared apartment and her brother Harry turned up with his friend Gummer to help her move out.
CATE BLANCHETT AND ANDREW UPTON
MARRIED FOR: 23 YEARS
Australian theatre royalty, Blanchett and playwright Upton first met in 1996 and were married in Sydney in 1997. They have three sons and one daughter.
QUIRKY FACT: When they first met, Blanchett couldn’t stand Upton, finding him “aloof and arrogant”. The next time they met over a late-night poker game, things went infinitely better and they were engaged three weeks later.
Originally published as Kevin Bacon reveals key to maintaining one of Hollywood’s longest lasting marriages
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