Kevin Bacon Used Elaborate Disguise to Spend Day as Average Person

Through just six steps, anyone in Hollywood finds a connection to Kevin Bacon. This idea is the crux of the game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Recently, however, Kevin Bacon attempted to strip away these connections and live incognito for a day. This attempt provided him with an enlightening experience.

Kevin Bacon, 66, is a celebrated leading man and character actor, active in the industry since 1977. Nearly five decades later, he continues his prolific career, with films like Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F and MaXXXine releasing this year. However, Bacon also invested significant effort into blending into everyday life for a day, and his experience left him less than impressed.

Last week, Bacon discussed his exceptional fame and the lengths he went to experience a regular day during an interview with Vanity Fair. “I went to a special effects makeup artist,” he shared, “had consultations, and asked him to make me a prosthetic disguise.”

He tested his obscure look at The Grove, one of Los Angeles’ busiest commercial centers. The makeup worked flawlessly; “nobody recognized” Bacon. Initially, he felt the joy of successfully achieving normalcy. However, this feeling quickly faded.

“People were kind of pushing past me, not being nice,” Bacon recounted about his time in disguise. “Nobody said, ‘I love you.’ I had to wait in line to, I don’t know, buy a f—ing coffee or whatever.” He jokingly added, “I was like, This sucks. I want to go back to being famous.”

On the podcast Podcrushed, Bacon elaborated on his complex emotions about fame. A large part roots in his desire to be perceived as a serious actor. “When I became a pop star, the last thing I wanted to be was a pop star,” he explained.

Bacon continued, “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.”

In fact, Bacon appreciates when audiences have strong reactions to his characters, seeing it as a testament to his work. “I don’t need you to go to a movie and love me,” Bacon said. “If you go to a movie like ‘MaXXXine’ or ‘Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F,’ and I die and you stand up and cheer, I’m like, ‘Great. That was my gig. That’s what I wanted out of it.'”

Source: Vanity Fair