Kevin Bacon: I could never have made it as a Marine

[thedrifter]

Kevin Bacon: I could never have made it as a Marine
posted by halboedeker on Jan 10, 2009 10:51:59 AM
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LOS ANGELES -- Kevin Bacon has played Marines in "A Few Good Men," "Frost/Nixon" and HBO's upcoming "Taking Chance."

But don't read anything into that group of roles.

"The one thing I will say is that there is no part of me that ever considered being a Marine, could make it in the Marine Corps," Bacon told TV critics. "I am definitely not that guy. I'm not that guy to throw myself in harm's way. I would never make it through boot camp. It's all acting."

"Taking Chance," which premieres Feb. 21, gives Bacon a special acting assignment. He plays Lt. Col. Michael Strobl, the retried Marine who co-wrote the film. It's a true story about Strobl's accompanying home the remains of a Marine killed in Iraq in 2004.

Bacon wanted to capture Strobl's look.

"I spent time with Mike and was interested certainly as much in the external part of who he is, the way he holds himself and looks and all the gestures and all those things, as I was just in internally what was sort of happening for him during this process," Bacon said.

"So that was extremely important to me. With the amount of movies that I've done, I think this is maybe one of two or three where I've actually played a real person. I don't tend to get parts playing real characters from history. So that was a real challenge."

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Kevin Bacon taken with HBO's "Taking Chance'' movie
Posted by mdawidz January 12, 2009 01:38AM
APKevin Bacon plays an officer escorting the body of a fallen Marine in HBO's "Taking Chance."
Los Angeles - Michael Strobl, a Desert Storm veteran and Marine lieutenant colonel, spotted the name in the spring of 2004. He was stationed at Quantico, Va., when he learned that Lance Corporal Chance Phelps, 19, had been killed in action by hostile fire in the Al Anbar province of Iraq.

Phelps, assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, was posthumously award the Bronze Star with Combat Distinguishing Device for his heroic action during the ambush that claimed his life. But what jumped out at Strobl in the report was Phelps' hometown. It was Strobl's hometown, too: Dubois, Wyoming.

Strobl asked to the Marine assigned to accompany Phelps' body from Dover Port Mortuary at Dover Air Force Base to Dubois. It was the start of a remarkable journey dramatized in "Taking Chance,'' the HBO film starring Kevin Bacon as Strobl. It premieres at 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 21.

Along the way, Strobl kept a journal, documenting how Americans from all walks of life honored the fallen Marine they never knew.

"You can read an article that says a certain number of Marines were killed in this city, or you see a body count coming up, it doesn't really hit home in the same kind of way as it does if you actually see what happens to the actual remains,'' Bacon told a group of TV critics. "You see the preparation, you see the respect and you see the tradition and the honor that is involved with actually returning them to their final resting place.''

Bacon says little needed to be done to make the journey more moving or compelling.

"The story is really a very, very simple one,'' Bacon said. "It's really just the story of this man and this person Chance he's returning. And it's almost completely unembellished with anything to make it more cinematic or dramatic or to somehow force us to feel one way or another based on what our preconceived notions are about Iraq and whether or not we should have been in there or whatever. It's just the simple telling of what this process is like and, in its simplicity, I think, becomes an extremely profound kind of comment on the casualties of war.''

This is the third Marine Bacon has played. The other were for the films "A Few Good Men'' and "Frost/Nixon.''

"The one thing I will say is that there is no part of me that ever considered being a Marine, could make it in the Marine Corps,'' Bacon said. "I am definitely not that guy. I'm not. I'm not the guy to throw myself in harm's way. I would never make it through boot camp. It's all acting.''

Phelps began noticing the deeply personal responses to his mission at the Dover Port Mortuary.

"During the two days I was at Dover, I think they had about a dozen departures of remains,'' said Phelps, now retired from the Marines. "And every time the remains would leave, these construction workers would stop their work, put their hard hats over their hearts, and stand at their version of attention. And seeing that, I realized I want to remember this because there's really some goodness there, these people doing this every time the remains depart.

"Then the hearse driver on the way to Philadelphia, the flight attendant who gave me a crucifix, and the only thing she said to me was, 'I want you to have this,' and she left. The baggage handlers, the cargo people, the pilots, the flight attendants - all of these people who you can presume covered the spectrum of political views - they all had this profound sense of gratitude and sorrow at Chance's loss . . . people who didn't know Chance, didn't know the circumstances of his death. All they knew was he was a Marine who died in combat, and they represented, to me, all that's good about America.''

Ellie