Kevin Bacon / "Taking Chance"

[RanchHQ]

"Taking Chance" gets 5 Horseshoes from The HQ Household.

Great to watch with teens or young adults.

Kevin Bacon took a chance with 'Taking Chance'

Ruthe Stein, Chronicle Movie Correspondent

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Kevin Bacon is having a moment. After being largely an unsung hero during his more than 30 years onscreen, Bacon won two best actor awards last month. A Golden Globe was followed a week later by the Screen Actors Guild Award.

Kevin Bacon won Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards for his role in "Taking Chance."

There's an irony not lost on Bacon that the prizes came for a part he wasn't sure he wanted to do. For one thing, it was a television movie, and Bacon has shied away from TV, concerned that the quality would not be up to what he was used to on the big screen. "I wasn't all that jazzed about doing something for TV, even if it was HBO," he says.

His other worry was that the project, "Taking Chance," might be construed as a war film.

"There had been a lot of Iraq movies," Bacon said. "Some of them were fantastic, but nobody went to see them. Obviously, I don't want to make something that nobody is going to go see."

Fortunately, he overcame his concerns and signed on to play Lt. Col. Michael Strobl in the true story of his poignant journey accompanying the body of a fallen Marine back to his hometown from the Iraq war. Bacon makes such a convincing Marine that you want to salute him.

Bacon, 51, talked about the physical challenges of playing a Marine and the outpouring of response to the film. His hair, it should be noted, is back to its disheveled spiky look.

Q: What did it take to turn yourself into a Marine officer?

A: I had played a Marine before in "A Few Good Men," so I had spent a few days getting ready for that part. I think acting is a question of using yourself and losing yourself, which to me means I have to use as much of Kevin as possible in order to find the things that you can relate to or connections I can make from an emotional standpoint. But between the time of action and cut I don't want to feel like Kevin. I want to lose myself in that uniform, in this case.

Q: What was it like to wear that uniform all day?

A: You can't really move or whatever I like to do in life in a uniform like that. Everything is tight. The worst part is the thing they wear on their neck to keep the collar down. I'm not a really high-maintenance actor, but I was just crying like a little girl, "You got to get this off of me."

Q: What are your feelings about being a Marine?

A: It is something that is a little bit difficult for me to relate to. I was raised in a pacifist household, so you know it is just not in my genes. So when you see people with short hair and in uniforms, if you are going to actually play them, you have to get past the uniform and the hair and really sort of see the essence of who they are as people, as opposed to being just men in uniform.

Q: You got a lot of response other actors and bystanders. Could you talk about that?

A: People were very compelled just by watching the shooting of the film. A lot of times they would come up to me and thank me and tell me stories about friends or family who were either killed or injured in the war. I was sort of embarrassed by this outpouring of gratitude. I felt like, "I'm just an actor - this is just pretend." {sbox}

Taking Chance is now available on DVD.

To see a trailer for "Taking Chance," go to links.sfgate.com/ZJHW.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/12/PKMP1C496N.DTL&type=movies#ixzz0iBfFOfah

[Martha]

With regard to Kevin Bacon in that Marine uniform, I'll have to quote Rod Stewart and say, "You Wear it Well." ahem...

(will have to get it on my NetFlix queue)

[RanchHQ]

Sorry, Martha.

Bacon stays in that Uniform during the entire movie.

[Cakeyism]

I watched this and it was very heart moving and emotional. I have to remind myself there are people in America that respect our soldiers, even though many around us (especially people around my age) don't. Everyone should watch this.