Want to know the secret to a long and loving marriage? Well, Kevin Bacon has some advice for you — kind of.
The “Footloose” actor recently celebrated 35 years of marriage to fellow actor Kyra Sedgwick and spoke about the key to a successful partnership on NBC’s “Today.”
When asked about the longevity of his marriage, Bacon simply answered, “No secret. Never have the secret.
“The secret is don’t ask a celebrity on how to stay married.”
On Monday, Bacon and Sedgwick took to Instagram to celebrate their anniversary.
“35 years feels like a heartbeat. #Anniversary,” Bacon captioned an old photo of him kissing “The Closer” actor on the forehead as the two snuggled up.
Sedgwick posted a Polaroid shot of her and her husband from the mid-1980s, writing, “It was 1987- on the set of ‘Lemon Sky’ – I met a man named Kevin. Happy 35 my love.”
The duo married on Sept. 4, 1998, and share two children, Travis, 34, and Sosie, 31. Travis is a musician and producer, and Sosie is an actor.
Before getting married and having kids, Bacon noted that his worldview was much narrower, he told “Today.”
“When I came to New York, I was a teenager, and to become an actor there has to be an element of self-involvement, a deep kind of self-involvement,” he said. “I certainly had that. I really, really was focused on me and less on the world.”
His wife and kids opened him up to a new perspective, however.
“In the simplest terms, all of a sudden there’s someone that you’ll step in front of a bus for. [It’s the] willingness to sacrifice anything for them,” Bacon said. “Once you change your point of view in that way, you start to see how many issues there are that need addressing outside of yourself and your desire to become famous and make money and acquire stuff.”
Ever the jokester, Bacon said that the biggest challenge in his marriage is “getting the temperature in the car correct so that we’re both happy.”
Speaking about the first time he met Sedgwick, Bacon told People earlier this year, “I was knocked out. I thought she was amazing.”
Sedgwick said in the People interview that she felt an instant comfort with the “Apollo 13” actor after their first date. “I remember waking up and going, ‘I feel like home.’ I realized, ‘Oh, that was him.'”
When it comes to Bacon’s favorite parts of marriage, it’s the little things he values most.
“To me, walking down the street together just shooting the s— in the middle of the night still feels like a nice place to be,” he said.
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