Kevin Bacon confesses he struggled with fame after ‘Footloose’ success

Kevin Bacon has recently confessed he struggled with fame after the success of his first movie project, Footloose.

Speaking on the latest episode of Podcrushed, Kevin revealed he didn’t want to be known for his dancing role but as “more of a serious actor”.

Kevin said, “When I became a pop star, the last thing I wanted to be was a pop star.”

“I had already moved into, you know, ‘I want to be Dustin Hoffman or Meryl [Streep] or John Cazale or [Robert] De Niro. I want to work with [Martin] Scorsese. I want to do Chekhov.’ You know what I mean?” remarked the Apollo 13 actor.

Recalling the time when he declined Footloose movie, Kevin explained “I was so into what my idea of a serious actor was, and all of a sudden I was given this thing [Footloose] that was completely not a serious actor. So I rejected it, like, full on.”

“And really, I think in some ways, I tried to self-sabotage that piece of myself and my popularity,” continued the 65-year-old.

Kevin recalled the party game of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon “completely horrified” him and even made him anxious.

“Everything that I had dreamed of gave me a tremendous amount of self-doubt but also anxiety,” stated the actor

Kevin explained, “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 added that he “eventually learned to embrace it, and realised it wasn’t really going away”.

“It’s not a thing; it’s not anything you can hold. … It’s just an idea,” he added.

Meanwhile, Kevin took the game so much that he founded the nonprofit Six Degrees as well as launched podcast called Six Degrees with Kevin Bacon.