Kevin Bacon, a household name since his breakout role in 1984’s “Footloose,” recently decided to see what life is like for the average person. In a new interview with Vanity Fair, Bacon shares his experience of attempting to blend in with the crowd for a day.
“I went to a special effects makeup artist, had consultations, and asked him to make me a prosthetic disguise,” Bacon reveals. The 65-year-old actor felt the need for such measures due to his frequent recognition in public.
“I’m not complaining, but I have a face that’s pretty recognizable. Putting my hat and glasses on is only going to work to a certain extent,” he explains.
Equipped with a prosthetic nose, fake teeth, and glasses, Bacon ventured to the tourist-heavy shopping complex The Grove in Los Angeles. The transformation was so effective that he went completely unnoticed. “Nobody recognized me. People were kind of pushing past me, not being nice. Nobody said, ‘I love you,'” Bacon quips. “I had to wait in line to, I don’t know, buy a fu**ing coffee or whatever. I was like, ‘This sucks. I want to go back to being famous.'”
Fame is not new to Bacon’s family. His father, Edmund Bacon, was a renowned urban planner who graced the cover of Time magazine. When asked if his dad’s fame influenced his own career choice, Bacon affirms, “A hundred percent.”
“In terms of giving credit to my parents, of course I give all the credit to them. My mother was very much on the artistic side and really encouraged acting,” he adds. “They both encouraged as much creativity as possible in everything — dance, music, theater, painting, sculpture, whatever.”
Another perk of being famous is Bacon received an unexpected gift from Beyoncé after he and his daughter covered one of her new songs.
At the recent premiere of “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F” in Beverly Hills, Bacon shared the exciting news. “Here’s the really cool thing, I actually got a T-shirt from Beyoncé,” Bacon told ET. “Apparently, it was from her, I don’t know, what can I say.”
The actor, along with his and Kyra Sedgwick’s 32-year-old daughter, Sosie, delighted fans in April with a collaborative Instagram Reel featuring their rendition of Beyoncé and Miley Cyrus’ duet, “II Most Wanted,” from Beyoncé’s album, “Cowboy Carter.” The father-daughter duo added their personal touch by revising the lyrics to reflect their relationship.
In the video, Bacon plays his guitar while Sosie sits closer to the camera and sings.
The caption read, “A little duet of II Most Wanted, but had to make a few lyric changes to keep it father-daughter friendly. 😎. #CowboyCarter.”
Bacon has been sharing his musical side on Instagram, often covering popular songs with his own twist. When asked about his approach to these covers, he told ET, “Well, listen, that means that I’m just trying to simplify whatever it is.”
The actor expressed his admiration for Beyoncé’s latest work, stating, “I love the record so much.” His “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F” co-star, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, chimed in, confirming they were discussing “Cowboy Carter” and adding, “It’s brilliant, it really is.”
This isn’t the first time Bacon has shown he is a fan of Beyoncé. In August 2022, the actor took to Instagram to cover Bey’s song, “Heated,” from her hit album, “Renaissance.”
On a personal note, Bacon also discussed with ET his upcoming 35th wedding anniversary with Sedgwick. When asked about the secret to their long-lasting marriage, he humbly responded, “No secret. I really don’t know the secret.”
Bacon then drew a parallel to his musical pursuits, saying, “Honestly, I mean, I have, this is going back to music. People ask me a lot, it’s hard work right, you really gotta put in the work and I’ve heard that said and to me, it’s less about the work and more about play, you gotta play.”
To the outside observer, being famous looks pretty cool. Sure, celebrity often means that there’s a lot that you can’t do in public without being mobbed by fans, but that’s always seemed to me like a small price to pay for all the perks that come with fame. Kevin Bacon agrees, and he would know because he’s gone to extreme lengths to learn that being a regular person is super lame compared to being famous.
Kevin Bacon has been making movies for most of his life, and as such few people in the world haven’t seen his films. Bacon has two movies on the 2024 release schedule this week alone as he is in both the “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F” cast which hit Netflix yesterday, while horror movie “MaXXXine’s” release date has just been released. If you walked past Kevin Bacon on the street you would surely recognize him. Bacon himself has been famous for so long that he decided he wanted to see what it was like to truly not be recognized, and he went to extreme lengths, getting special prosthetics designed so he could go out in public without being recognized. Bacon told Vanity Fair, “I’m not complaining, but I have a face that’s pretty recognizable. Putting my hat and glasses on is only going to work to a certain extent. I went to a special effects makeup artist, had consultations, and asked him to make me a prosthetic disguise.”
The disguise included fake teeth and a prosthetic nose added to a pair of glasses. Kevin Bacon then took his new look and went to The Grove, a large and often crowded outdoor shopping mall in Los Angeles. A place that is full of people would certainly result in the actor being recognized under normal circumstances. The disguise apparently worked perfectly, as the “Footloose” star, was able to move freely around the mall without being asked for selfies or autographs.
Unfortunately for Kevin Bacon, the disguise worked too well. The actor was able to be a normal non-famous person, but in doing so he discovered that being a normal person kinda sucks. He discovered he didn’t like the way he was treated, and quickly decided he preferred being famous. Bacon continued, “People were kind of pushing past me, not being nice. Nobody said, ‘I love you.’ I had to wait in line to, I don’t know, buy a fucking coffee or whatever. I was like, This sucks. I want to go back to being famous.”
I mean, at least he’s honest. While I’m sure there are annoying elements to being famous, I think most of us would happily put up with the negatives to get access to all the positives, and Kevin Bacon has absolutely confirmed that this is the case. Who wants to go to Disneyland and stand in line when you can go to Disneyland and get VIP treatment? Being famous is much preferable to not being famous.
Kevin Bacon forgot what it was like to be a regular person, so he asked a makeup artist to help him blend into the crowd for a day. The experience made him realize he prefers being famous.
With films like “Friday the 13th” and “Footloose” on his resume, it has been 40 years since Kevin Bacon has been able to walk in public without people recognizing him. So, he decided to perform an experiment and see how it felt to be a regular person for a day.
As Kevin told Vanity Fair in an interview published on July 3rd, he asked a special effects makeup artist to create a “prosthetic disguise.” The artists set him up with fake teeth, a new nose, and glasses that Kevin wore around Los Angeles, and it worked.
“Nobody recognized me!” he told the publication.
One Trip To A Coffee Shop And Kevin Bacon Was Ready To Be Famous Again
Kevin Bacon admitted that until that day, his best disguise was a hat and a pair of glasses, but that only worked “to a certain extent.” Without fail, someone would see an a-lister through the camouflage. But this disguise made him feel completely invisible.
The actor tried his new look at an outdoor shopping mall called The Grove, which is usually packed with tourists, and nobody spotted him. Getting a dose of mediocrity was a wake-up call. As Kevin hilariously and poignantly recalled, people aren’t always pleasant to average folks.
“People were kind of pushing past me,” he shared, “not being nice. Nobody said, ‘I love you.’”
He went on to joke that he had to “wait in line” to buy his coffee, and as he was standing there he thought to himself, “This sucks. I want to go back to being famous.”
So, to make a long story short, the grass was not greener on the other side. Kevin Bacon prefers the downsides of fame over the perks of normalcy.
Kevin Bacon revealed in a recent interview with Vanity Fair that he commissioned facial prosthetics so he could try going out in public without being noticed as an iconic actor. As the actor said: “I’m not complaining, but I have a face that’s pretty recognizable. Putting my hat and glasses on is only going to work to a certain extent.”
“I went to a special effects makeup artist, had consultations, and asked him to make me a prosthetic disguise,” Bacon continued, saying he got fake teeth and a slightly different nose made so that he could test out what it would be like not to be Kevin Bacon in public. He went to The Grove in Los Angeles and “nobody recognized me,” which the actor didn’t exactly grow to love.
“People were kind of pushing past me, not being nice,” Bacon said. “Nobody said, ‘I love you.’ I had to wait in line to, I don’t know, buy a fucking coffee or whatever. I was like, ‘This sucks. I want to go back to being famous.’”
Bacon has been a recognizable star for four decades since his breakthrough role in the 1984 teen classic “Footloose.” The actor said on the “Podcrushed” podcast last year that the film created a lane for him in Hollywood that did not line up with his original aspirations as a performer. Bacon had no idea he was auditioning for a “dance movie” when he tested for the role of Ren McCormack.
“When I did the dance movie, I was not a dancer. I wasn’t trained as a dancer,” Bacon said. “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.”
“When I became a pop star, the last thing I wanted to be was a pop star,” Bacon continued. “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.”
Bacon currently stars in two new movies: “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F” is now streaming on Netflix and “Maxxxine” is in theaters via A24.
Kevin Bacon isn’t a fan of the “normie” lifestyle.
The “Footloose” actor, 65, recalled the moment he disguised himself as an ordinary Joe in a desperate bid to see what life was like for the non-Hollywood elite.
“I’m not complaining, but I have a face that’s pretty recognizable,” Bacon told Vanity Fair. “Putting my hat and glasses on is only going to work to a certain extent.”
Bacon once decked himself out in prosthetics to live a “normal” life for a day. FilmMagic
“I went to a special effects makeup artist, had consultations, and asked him to make me a prosthetic disguise.”
The actor’s disguise consisted of a prosthetic nose, fake teeth, and glasses.
Decked out in full disguise, the actor headed to Los Angeles tourist hotspot The Grove for an afternoon of shopping.
But he soon faced the horror of horrors — his disguise worked too well.
The actor is no stranger to global fame. Getty Images
“Nobody recognized me. People were kind of pushing past me, not being nice. Nobody said, ‘I love you,’” Bacon said.
“I had to wait in line to, I don’t know, buy a f–king coffee or whatever,” he moaned. “I was like, ‘This sucks. I want to go back to being famous.’”
Being famous isn’t new to Bacon, who has been a household name since securing his big break in 1984 with the hit film film “Footloose” at age 26.
The actor said he wasn’t too fond of not being recognized in public. WireImage
The leading role soon opened the gates for countless TV shows and films to follow.
His career has been so prolific that it spawned a trivia game called “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” where the goal was to link any actor to Kevin Bacon in less than six roles.
And fame runs in his family.
The actor’s father Edmund Bacon was an established urban planner who even graced the cover of TIME Magazine — something that spurred Kevin to dabble in Hollywood.
“In terms of giving credit to my parents, and course I give all the credit to them, my mother was very much on the artistic side and really encouraged acting,” he told the outlet.
Bacon shot to fame after securing his big break in 1984 with the hit film film “Footloose” at age 26. Getty Images
“They both encouraged as much creativity as possible in everything — dance, music, theater, painting, sculpture, whatever.”
Source: Vanity Fair, ET, CinemaBlend, Variety
