Kevin Bacon grappled with the fame brought on by his role in ‘Footloose‘, a film that catapulted his career. The 65-year-old actor, who portrayed Ren McCormack in the 1984 musical drama, expressed his reservations about being typecast as a dancer and sought recognition as a “serious actor.”
During a recent episode of the Podcrushed podcast hosted by Penn Badgley, alongside Nava Kavelin and Sophie Ansari, Bacon reflected on his feelings towards ‘Footloose’. He confessed that he was uneasy about the kind of fame it brought and how it might affect his future endeavors:
“When I became a pop star, the last thing I wanted to be was a pop star. 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 shared.
Kevin elaborated, “I thought that, and this is my own acting insecurity – impostor syndrome – I thought that the joke of it was that the great actors could be connected to a loser actor like me.”
However, the Tremors actor eventually came to terms with it and realized that it wasn’t something he could simply dismiss.
“It’s not a thing; it’s not anything you can hold. … It’s just an idea,” he added.
