Sedgwick moves to L.A. for role in series

Kyra Sedgwick is as much a part of Manhattan as Central Park. You can spot her working out at her local gym. Shopping on the Upper West Side. Walking the dog with her husband, Kevin Bacon.

So why has the mother of two moved to Los Angeles, a town as blandly glossy as Sedgwick – in her tight jeans, pointed heels and bright camisole top – is hip and edgy?

To play a “flawed, struggling, incredibly smart and ethical” deputy police chief who’s also a fashion-challenged “fish out of water” on TNT’s “The Closer,” premiering tonight at 9 (cable channel 54 in Spokane, 31 in Coeur d’Alene).

Her Brenda Johnson is a Southerner who moves to the West Coast to head LAPD’s Priority Murder Squad. She wears frumpy clothes, takes no guff from the men around her and speaks in a rapid-fire drawl.

Is the actress even remotely as take-no-prisoners tough as her character?

“I can be, if I feel like something’s not fair or if I’m being an advocate for my kids,” she says. “I’m not afraid of confrontation. But she’s a loner who doesn’t have a lot of allies – and that’s not me.”

Sedgwick, 39, who made her mark in 1992’s “Singles” and played Bacon’s troubled girlfriend in last year’s “The Woodsman,” has mainly focused on raising her son, Travis, 15, and daughter, Sosie, 13.

Being away from her children has been a challenge, Sedgwick says. But Bacon has stepped up, staying at home while mom works and telling Sedgwick that ” ‘you deserve this. You’ve sacrificed a lot,’ ” she says.

“It’s been OK so far. If I was in New York doing this job, I don’t think I could do it. It would be so hard to come home and not be with them and do the things I usually do with them, to learn my lines.”