Digital Media Center
Bryant-Denny Stadium, Gate 61
920 Paul Bryant Drive
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0370
(800) 654-4262

© 2024 Alabama Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Kyra Sedgwick

Kyra Sedgwick
Ari Michelson
/
Provided by the artist
Kyra Sedgwick

Kyra Segwick's acting career has spanned nearly four decades but it all started on the soap opera Another World when she was just 16 years old. "I felt like a misfit toy. Because suddenly you're different from everyone else. But I was dead serious."

That seriousness led her to roles in the films Born on the 4th of July, Something to Talk About, Singles and Phenomenon. Her role as Brenda Leigh Johnson on the TNT series The Closer that ran for seven seasons earned her an Emmy and a Golden Globe award. In the police procedural her character's signature, catchphrase "Thank you; thank you so much..." had more to it than it appeared on paper, "she was incredible, underestimated wherever she went. And killed people with kindness. So her "thank you thank you so much" was basically her way of saying eff you. And "bless his heart" was a way of saying, that person is insane and I want to kill them."

Having committed so much of her career to dramatic acting, producing, and directing projects Sedgwick is shifting gears and currently stars in the new ABC sitcom, Call Your Mother. The series is about an empty nester with two grown kids who flies to Los Angeles to be closer to them. The series is set in the post-pandemic future. "We haven't been able to shoot this in front of a live audience which feels like a loss... But I hope to be in front of an audience and I feel like this is made to be in front of an audience. It's nice imagining life when we're past this."

Last year Kyra Sedgwick and her husband actor Kevin Bacon celebrated their 32nd wedding anniversary. To mark the occasion Bacon surprised her with two pygmy goats. "I'm notoriously bad with presents. We also made a deal that we weren't going to get each other presents. And he said, "well this is a funny one." So he walks me down to the barn and then he puts something over my eyes and I walk in and I smell you know... poop. I opened up my eyes and the cutest little pygmy goats are scurrying around the corners of the stall."

For Sedgewick's Ask Me Another challenge her newly acquired goat knowledge is put to the test. Host Ophira Eisenberg and Jonathan Coulton ask Sedgwick questions about some Guiness world record achieving goats in a game called, G.O.A.T Goats, which stands for "Greatest Of All Time" Goats.

Interview Highlights

On some of the similarities between herself and her The Closer character Brenda Leigh Johnson

Women get to be leaders. They get to be number one on the call sheet. Or the executive producer job. But you have to do a lot more. You have to conduct yourself with a lot of diplomacy. You have to make sure not to hurt men's egos, which I'm really good at. And I have had to be since I was on the soap. So Brenda was a really good role model in that way. She was able to kick butt, but also do it with a smile and heels.

On her dreams of one day being in a musical

I just feel like it's so transporting for the actors as well as for the audience. Especially right now, I feel like people are just longing to be back in the theatre. You know when all the dancing girls come out and the music crescendos and oh my God! You just want to jump up out of your seat in hysteria! I would love to do something like that. Just super super fun. No crying, no big dramatic moments.

Heard on Kyra Sedgwick: Empty Nest, Barn Full Of Goats

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

News from Alabama Public Radio is a public service in association with the University of Alabama. We depend on your help to keep our programming on the air and online. Please consider supporting the news you rely on with a donation today. Every contribution, no matter the size, propels our vital coverage. Thank you.