By James Randall Chumbley
July 6, 2024
As of late, there has been a lot of buzz in several interviews and write-ups about actor Kevin Norwood Bacon going to great lengths to have himself disguised as an average Joe, by a makeup artist. That transformation included fake teeth, altered nose along with glasses.
Before I knew much about it, I thought the prolific actor with the talent of playing an array of versatile characters over a career of some-40 years and in some-61 films or thereabouts; and the recipient of many accolades, along with a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award — might be gathering first-hand experience for a future movie. But apparently, that wasn’t the case as I understand it.
I’ve only seen three of Bacon’s movies: Footloose (1984), A Few Good Men (1992), and Mystic River (2003). All I have to say to Mr. Bacon, is bravo — well done.
However, Bacon’s objective, as he shared in an interview with Vanity Fair and on Graham Norton’s Talk Show, was to be unfamous for a day when he recently ventured out to the humming, high-end shopping mall with trendy shops, a movie theater, and restaurants at The Grove in Los Angeles.
Kevin Bacon also conveyed to Vanity Fair, to be incognito was: “live out his dream of experiencing life as a regular guy.” But Mr. Bacon, were you not a so-called regular guy before you became a house-whole name after the success of your role as, cute-as-pie, Ren Cormack in the successful 1984, movie — Footloose?
But possibly, you first got a taste of notoriety, if you were one of the students voted as the pretty people in Julia Master School in Philadelphia’s yearbook. If not, certainly, you must have gotten a lot of attention from both girls and even boys while roaming the halls between classes, at lunch, and after school — and even under the bleachers at football games. I’m just guessing, unless you were pimply-faced, unattractive at the time, awkward, and-or nerdy. But there’s nothing wrong concerning those teenage situations.
After your off-camera performance was up or at some point during it, you expounded a few dislikes in the article, including no one recognized me, and it was awful. But wasn’t not being recognized the point? As well: people were kind of pushing past me, not being nice; nobody said, I love you; you had to wait in line to buy a f—ing coffee or whatever. Welcome to a large part of the real world. But as far as your masquerade, you stated: you wanted to return to your A-list status. Maybe you should have waited until Halloween, since you have an affinity for horror movies, of which you’ve starred in a few.
That outcome might have been different — in fact, I’m quite certain, if you had chosen to be dressed up in drag as Sleeping Beauty and then the seven dwarfs could have cleared the way of the crowd and stood in line for your F—ing coffee or whatever.
You did contradict yourself a bit as was introduced in a CNN piece, when you stated: you were thrilled to discover that nobody recognized you as you also expressed, I never worry about how people feel about me, but that was in the context of playing a role. Only my opinion from your interviews, I think that you do care either way.
You did appear to be somewhat arrogant and narcissistic, on The Graham Norton Show concerning your reference to those having no public notoriety: a regular dude, a regular person, and normal was quite bothersome. There is no such thing as regular or normal when it comes to the human condition. We all have our own normal as you do. It’s an incomparable state.
On a last note: humility is a beautiful attribute.
