Features

Kyra Royale

August 1996 David Kamp
Features
Kyra Royale
August 1996 David Kamp

SPOTLIGHT

FOR DETAILS, SEE CREDITS PAGE

Kyra Royale

With her crackly voice, elastic smile, and Carole King mane, Kyra Sedgwick exudes Kindly Babysitter, the type who appears at your door bearing a guitar case, a clutch of Jackson Browne records, and a bag of carob chips, declaring, "Tonight we're gonna bake health squares!" Directors like to use her as an earthy, free-spirited counterpart to more uptight characters. In Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July, she's Tom Cruise's leftwing girlfriend. In Lasse Hallstrom's Something to Talk About, she's Julia Roberts's mouthy, protective sister. And in Mr. & Mrs. Bridge, she's the Merchant-Ivory team's idea of a wayward woman.

"I have a lot of people whose shoes I want to walk in," she says, "a lot of personalities in my head." The latest: Lace, John Travolta's romantic interest in the just-out Phenomenon, and Elizabeth, a mother's helper who becomes engulfed in torturous goingson, in Losing Chase, directed by Sedgwick's husband, Kevin Bacon. (It airs on Showtime in August.) They are wildly different, but they further confirm that Kyra Sedgwick is a woman with whom you could happily leave your kids.

DAVID KAMP