Kevin Bacon has one very specific request for wedding DJs.
Although Bacon has enjoyed a varied career, among his most memorable roles is that of Ren, a dance-loving teenager in 1984’s Footloose.
Ahead of his new Prime Video series, The Bondsman, the actor sat down at SXSW film festival for a career retrospective.
The 66-year-old opened up about how Footloose had catapulted him to the upper echelons of fame, stating: “It’s what I wanted, I have no one to blame but myself. It was definitely my dream to have all those things. But until you really have that, you don’t really realise there’s something kind of strange about it.”
Bacon went on to explain that he found posing shirtless and doing photo shoots for teen magazines difficult because it “was just so the opposite of how I wanted to view myself”.
The actor is known for several other films, including National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978) and Friday the 13th (1980) but attracts the most attention for Footloose – especially when it comes to weddings.
Bacon spoke about the dread of hearing Kenny Loggins’ hit song “Footloose” – from the film’s soundtrack – come on at a wedding.
“My worst nightmare is to be at a wedding and the DJ puts on the music,” he said during the conversation.
“They always start out being about the bride, and then there’s alcohol involved. And by about 10.30, the song comes on, and suddenly the wedding becomes about me getting out and dancing.”
In an iconic moment at the end of the film, Bacon’s character and his friends dance to the upbeat rhythm of the recognisable song, which Loggins wrote specifically for the film.
When the song is played at a wedding, Bacon said “people will literally form a circle around me and clap their hands like I’m a trained monkey”.
As a result, he now asks the DJs to please not play the song.
“It’s not because I don’t love the song, I do love this song. It’s not because I’m not proud of the movie, I’m 100 per cent proud of it,” he said.
Speaking about the film’s iconic dance scenes, Bacon said he was not initially aware that Footloose was a dance movie.
“The script was not written in that way at all, and there was no indication other than one line, like, he gets pissed off and dances or something,” he said. “I was not a trained dancer.”
Bacon said he has seen the film, which also stars Lori Singer, Chris Penn, John Lithgow, and Sarah Jessica Parker, “three or four times”.
His children, however, have never seen it, he said, adding: “What’s up with that?”
Bacon has two adult children with his wife and fellow actor Kyra Sedgewick: Travis and Sosie.
Sosie Bacon is an actor as well, recently starring as the lead in the 2022 horror film Smile.
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