This year marks the 40th anniversary of Footloose, the iconic ’80s movie which starred Kevin Bacon as a teenager who attempts to overturn a ban on dancing in a small town. Footloose was shot at Payson High School in Utah, and the students have been campaigning on social media to get Kevin Bacon to visit the school on prom day. And you’d better believe he’ll be there.
The actor announced to the Today Show that he will be returning to Payson High School for prom. “I have been so impressed with everything that’s been going on there with this crazy idea to get me to come back,” Bacon said. “I’ve been amazing at the work that all of you have been putting into this, with the musical and the flash mobs and the re-creations.“
He continued, “It hasn’t gone unnoticed by me, not to mention the fact that you tied in SixDegrees.org, our foundation, and are trying to figure out ways to give back to your community. It’s really inspirational, so thank you. Thank you. And I’m gonna come. I gotta come!” It also happens that Payson High School will soon be relocating to a new building, so this will be the last chance for Kevin Bacon to attend prom at the original Footloose school.
Although Bacon has embraced Footloose, it wasn’t always so. He initially rejected the movie as he wanted to be seen as a serious actor. “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,” Bacon said last year. “So I rejected it, full on. I tried to self-sabotage that piece of myself and my popularity.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.“
He added that he wasn’t even aware Footloose was going to be a “dance movie” when he auditioned. “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 said. “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.“
Enjoy your time at prom, Kevin Bacon!
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