The actor at the center of the six degrees of separation game, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, will touch the lives of many in a far more profound way when he is seen on screens in the HBO film Taking Chance this weekend. Based on a true story, Bacon plays Lt. Col. Michael Strobl, a marine who was charged with the task of escorting Private First Class Chance Phelps' body home after he was killed in action by enemy fire in the Al Anbar Province of Iraq in April 2004. Taking Chance is based on the journal Strobl was compelled to write after making the emotional voyage from the mortuary at Dover Air Force Base to Dubois, Wyoming, Phelps' final resting place. The film show's how Phelps' last journey home, and Strobl's account of it, affected people across the country.
Bacon, of course, is best known for his seminal '80s movies like Footloose and She's Having a Baby, however, some of his most intense performances were in little seen dramas like The Woodsman and Where the Truth Lies. He's played a marine three times now, in A Few Good Men, Frost/Nixon and Taking Chance, the later role perhaps being his most powerful to date. As he ends his own journey portraying an officer bearing witness to just one of the thousands of similar tragic trips that have deliberately been kept from the public's eyes, Bacon talks about Taking Chance.
Question: Of the encounters Col. Strobl has on the road in the film, which of them really spoke to you?
Kevin Bacon: I suppose the baggage handlers, when they all take their hats off and he doesn't really expect it. He's really taken aback by that. I think even the people who were there watching the whole thing come down were moved by watching that experience.
Q:
You are more of an observer than anything else really. How do you play that role?
KB:
It's good. I like doing that. When you are a young man you tend to want to do a lot of big acting, put your acting out there, but I think as you get a little older you can trust being more of an observer. Holding things inside and letting your reactions and whatever you put in your gut come out through your eyes, and trusting that is going to play.
Q:
You've played three Marines before. Do you have any sense of connection to that or is a Marine in the '60s different from a Marine in the '90s and today?
KB:
I think the Marines are very specific. I think there is something that is specifically different about them. I'm not sure I could verbalize it. I hope that I've been able to internalize it in some way so that it looks like I'm a Marine. I'm not sure what it is but they are different than you and I.
Q:
How do you approach a performance?
KB:
What I try to do is start from the inside. I do a back-story and figure out the history of this guy. I figure out what he likes and dislikes. One of the things I did was get a play list from my tunes that he likes. I made myself a play list on my iPod of all the songs that he likes and I listened to that.
Q:
What were some of the songs?
KB:
A lot of classic rock, AC/DC and stuff like that, maybe a little Toby Keith. I work in that kind of way. Then eventually I start thinking about the external side of things, the hair, the make-up, the walk, gestures, uniform, voice, and accent. I start layering that stuff on later.
Q:
How much of your decision to sign onto a project like this is to tell a story that affects where we are today?
KB:
I think I make the decisions based on my political or social beliefs in the same way that I don't feel like there is nothing I won't do in a movie if I think it's true to the movie and true to the character. For instance, I'm not going to not smoke in a movie if I think the character smokes. I don't believe that is our responsibility personally. I think it is its own form of censorship.
That being said, if I'm in a movie I always take my work very, very seriously. I try to do the best I possibly can. I hope that every movie that comes out is going to be a great piece of entertainment. When you are doing something like Taking Chance there is something that is a little bit elevated about it. You do feel like you are doing something that is a little bit more important. It just has more weight based on the fact that it's a memory of this kid. It's a memory of millions of people who have been injured or died in wars. It's Mike's [Strobl] story. I definitely felt like I was doing something a little bit more important.
Q:
Having seen your wife's success with a TV show [Kyra Sedgwick / The Closer] and working with HBO on this movie, has it given you the opportunity to think about maybe doing a television series at some point? Or even guesting on hers?
KB:
I don't know if I'll guest on hers. You know, I like television as a producer and director. I'm working on this series The Booths now on Showtime that I'm producing and directing. From an acting standpoint I have a restless heart. To play the same guy, to sign on for the possibility of, god willing, seven years playing the same guy, I'm just not ready to do that.
Q:
You've said in the past that some of your dark roles take a toll on you personally, like The Woodsman and Murder in the First. Where does Taking Chance fall in that realm?
KB:
Yeah, it was hard. Obviously, I'm an actor but the family has to live with the loss of this kid every single day for the rest of their lives. I'm just a guy playing a part and I move on.
Q:
Does that make you difficult to live with while you are shooting if it's intense?
KB:
I don't think I'm a little difficult. It just gets into your heart, you can't help it, and if you are doing your work right it should.
Taking Chance premieres on HBO on Saturday, February 21 at 8pm.
You can read Lt. Col. Michael Strobl's original essay, Taking Chance, on which the film was based at the Chance Phelps Foundation website. The organization's mission is "to honor, pay tribute, and recognize the sacrifice of those that serve in the Unites States Military" and its aim is "to raise awareness of service member's sacrifice and to improve quality of life, and lessen the burden, for those that serve and their family members." Click HERE to make a donation.
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