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 Kills Cop: Axel F cast which hit Netflix yesterday, while horror movie MaXXXine's release date has jut 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.
