ET chatted with the actor about his #IStayHomeFor Challenge, 'Apollo 13's 25th anniversary and more.
Kevin Bacon is making the most of his time at home in self-isolation.
The actor chatted with ET's Lauren Zima via video chat on Friday, where he shared that he's keeping his good friend and former Apollo 13 co-star Tom Hanks in his thoughts after Hanks and wife Rita Wilson tested positive for coronavirus last week. Hanks and Wilson are now at their Australian residence recovering.
"We have exchanged emails and they are very much in my thoughts," Bacon noted. "Crazy about the guy. He is not just an incredible actor, but a real great man, and Rita as well. I think it was interesting how somebody that is so beloved was so early [diagnosed]. I think now we are at a place where we are going to [hear about] a lot of people that are well known [getting coronavirus]."
"But the way that he came right out with it, which by the way I don't think he needed to do, but he said, 'This is a real thing,' and he also said, 'We are going to be OK,' was very powerful and beautiful move on his part," he continued. "I'm thinking about him everyday."
Bacon and Hanks starred together in Ron Howard's 1995 film dramatization of the Apollo 13 lunar mission. In June, the movie celebrates its 25th anniversary.
"We felt that we were making something special, and I think that we were really super tapped into NASA and that story and the history of the space program," Bacon said when asked if he knew then how impactful the movie would be at the time. "We could feel actual astronauts getting excited about the movie that we were making. Hanks, I think he learned so much about the space program. I think he could fly the shuttle, honestly. He would just rattle this stuff off, it blew my mind."
"And Bill Paxton, the late great Bill Paxton, was also really really, super super into it," the actor recalled. "It did feel like Ron was making something that was really gonna last. I was just digging around in my basement recently and found this behind-the-scenes footage of us on the Zero-G airplane, also known as the vomit comet, and I had all the footage from it digitized, because I didn’t know if anyone else had seen it. But it’s really wild... people don’t know that we actually filmed up in this Zero-G airplane that, up until that point, was only really used for testing, equipment and astronaut training. And Ron Howard had the idea to get up there and film up there. So we did, and it was quite an experience."
Meanwhile, Bacon is making a difference during the coronavirus pandemic while staying put and spending quality time with his wife, Kyra Sedgwick. The Footloose star started the #IStayHomeFor challenge to allow others to share why they choose to self-isolate and keep others safe. The actor chose his wife of 31 years, Kyra Sedgwick, as his reason for staying home and urged others to take on the hashtag.
"We thought about the idea that you stay home for someone that you care about. If you go out and interact with someone, you may not get that person sick and they may not get you sick, but they could get someone else sick and it could be connected through a series of six degrees," Bacon explained. "We all have somebody in our lives that is important to us and that is a good reason to stay home. I also think that I should point out there are a lot of people that cannot stay home, a lot of people who at a time like this, the real heroes start to come out of the woodwork and they exist in all kinds of surprising places. Of course, our first responders and our medical professionals, but also the people that are still manning grocery stores and sanitation workers and all of those people who in a lot of ways, I feel, we need to stay home for them so they can do their work and stay as safe as possible."
And while he's staying home, he's connecting with his wife like never before.
"There is an opportunity here to get to a deeper and deeper level of a relationship," Bacon expressed before relating what the couple have been up to. "We keep our communication lines open as much as possible, we started meditating together, which is something we have never done before."
"Kyra, all of a sudden, said, 'I want to do a puzzle.' I don't think we have ever done a puzzle in 32, 31 years of knowing each other. We have this puzzle sitting right on our coffee table. I don't know if we will ever do it, but she wanted to have a puzzle. So you know, new stuff. We are experimenting with different ways to cook things out of the pantry...and playing music. We always have a lot of instruments around the house so we will start just playing something."
He also reassured that he and the rest of his family and friends are well, and keep in contact as much as they can.
ET also caught up with Bethenny Frankel this week, who shared how she's helping to fight the coronavirus pandemic with her B Strong organization, and how this situation has made her closer to her boyfriend, Paul Bernon.
See what she said in the video below.
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