{alltv} Sedgwick still loves 'Closer' role

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Kyra Sedgwick just can't hide her feelings for her character on The Closer.

"I love her. I love her. It is a serious, deep love affair," Sedgwick said of Deputy Police Chief Brenda Johnson.

"God I love her, because boy, that would be bad if I didn't."

Actually, it would be far worse if the viewers didn't love Brenda. But apparently they do, as The Closer has been around since 2005, racking up an impressive collection of awards and award nominations.

The sixth season of The Closer, which currently is airing on the U.S. cable network TNT (not available in Canada), can be seen on the Canadian cable service Super Channel starting on Monday. Super Channel is the same service that offers other gems that aren't otherwise available in Canada such as Justified (from FX), which stars Timothy Olyphant and was nominated for a Television Critics Association award this year.

But back to The Closer, which is the top-rated series ever on U.S. non-subscription cable and already has been renewed for a seventh season.

In some ways Brenda is right out of Gone With the Wind, right down to her Georgia accent. She has been brought to Los Angeles because of her knack for closing cases, which of course explains the title of the series.

"I think she is constantly surprising and fascinating to me," Sedgwick said of Brenda. "I never know how she is going to react to situations. I'm just so grateful to have a character like this to go back to every year.

"I think one of the best things of this whole experience is that I really had no expectations going in. But if 12 people were watching, I'd be like, 'What the hell am I doing?'"

The 44-year-old Sedgwick, who entered showbiz as a teenager in the early 1980s, has been married to actor Kevin Bacon for more than two decades. For a long time she shied away from series television because of her family.

"I've always worked, but I usually, blessedly, was not working non-stop," Sedgwick said. "But there were definitely lots of things I turned down, lots of hard choices that I made.

"I mean, Travis (the first of her two kids) was born and two weeks later I was doing Mr. & Mrs. Bridge with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. And I have a picture of breast feeding on the set with all the grips around. What was I thinking?"

We're not sure. But Sedgwick obviously was thinking more clearly when she chose to do The Closer.

So in real life, is Kyra as gutsy as Brenda?

"You know, I am, but she is more definitive than I am," Sedgwick said.

"I think I suffer from that female thing of seeing everyone's side of every situation - 'Yeah, I can see you're right, I can imagine what it's like to have your point of view.' She is really clear about her directives because she's so used to being the boss all the time."

Well, minor differences don't matter in the big picture, as long as Kyra Sedgwick and Brenda Johnson continue their serious, deep love affair.