Kevin Bacon recently reminisced about his iconic role in the 1984 film Footloose, sharing his original audition tape at a Tribeca Film Festival event.
The actor, now 65, revealed that he initially underestimated the importance of dancing in the movie, thinking he could simply improvise some moves for the audition.
Little did he know, his dancing skills would become a hallmark of the film and cement his status as a household name.
"The weird thing is that I didn't really get the extent of the dancing from the script," he confessed.
"They said something along the lines of ‘Oh, you're gonna have to have a dance audition.’ I thought ‘What? I’m not a dancer.’ But I said ‘I love to dance. I've been dancing since I was in high school — because I like girls. So I said, you don't need a choreographer — just turn on the music and turn on the cameras and I’ll dance around, I have no problem doing that," he recalled.
The You Should Have Left actor added: “They said 'No, you don't understand what we're going for here.’ "
Kevin plays a teenager in the movie Footloose who travels to a town where the local priest forbids dancing.
He quickly develops feelings for the minister's daughter, and the two decide to throw a senior prom at their high school in defiance of the school's dance ban.