Kevin Bacon rejected Footloose fame because he wanted to be a 'serious actor'
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Featured Image Credit: Noam Galai/Getty Images / Paramount Pictures
There’s no better footwork than that well-known movie from the 80s. What was it called again?
Oh, Footloose!
Well, this 1984 film produced one hell of a star in the form on Kevin Bacon, who played the leading man (Ren McCormack) from a small town that just needed to get his boogie on.
But it wasn’t all lights and cameras for this actor, as he’s now admitting that the fame he reached after the film’s success wasn’t in line with what he originally planned for himself.
In fact, Bacon went on the ‘Podcrushed’ podcast via Insider and spoke about how he didn’t know he was actually auditioning for a ‘dance movie’ when he did his test audition for his role.
He said: “When I did the dance movie, I was not a dancer. I wasn’t trained as a dancer.”
“If I’m being honest, I didn’t even really understand that it was a dance movie. I thought it was just a movie, and then, where they would indicate that there was dancing, I would just get up.”
Bacon explained: “They said something about a choreographer, and I said, ‘You don’t really need a choreographer. I’ll just get up and dance. It’s not a big deal. Just play the record for me and I’ll jump around.’ So, I was definitely not trained by any stretch of the imagination.”
The hit dance film featured a teenage boy from Chicago who moves to a small town full of modest people that from upon dancing in a wild style, leads to McCormack fuelling a rebellion against the local minister (played by John Lithgow), who has outlawed dancing.
We all remember the absolute bops that came from that film, right?
It was the soundtrack that had mums, dad, and grans out of their seats and on to the dancefloor as soon as the beginning notes were recognised.
It was so popular that Bacon became some sort of pop star for the 1980s, but it wasn’t his scene.
“When I became a pop star, the last thing I wanted to be was a pop star,” he said.
“I had already moved into, ‘I want to be Dustin Hoffman or Meryl or John Cazale or De Niro. I want to work with Scorsese. I want to do Chekhov.’ You know what I mean?”
“I was so into what my idea of a serious actor was, and all of a sudden, I was given this thing that was completely not a serious actor.”
“So, I rejected it, full on. I tried to self-sabotage that piece of myself and my popularity.”
He added: “I was very, very uncomfortable with photo shoots and magazines, and all these things that I dreamed of as a kid.”
“Everything that I had dreamed of gave me a tremendous amount of self-doubt and anxiety.”
But his wish was soon to come true as Bacon would soon work with directors like as Oliver Stone, Rob Reiner, Ron Howard, Clint Eastwood and more.
So, it looks as though he’s getting the kind of roles he wants after so long.
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