![\"Kevin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Kevin-Bacon-Actor-2024-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ YouTube Still)<\/p>\n
Sun 21 December 2025 1:00, UK <\/p>\n
It\u2019s a broad generalisation, but acting is a total crapshoot. There are no guarantees that a movie will be a seismic hit, just like it\u2019s impossible to tell which roles will become iconic. Kevin Bacon<\/a> has turned down at least one of each, possibly two, if his memory hadn\u2019t failed him.<\/p>\n For the last four decades, the star has been a ubiquitous presence in film and television, playing a number of memorable parts in a collection of award-winning, acclaimed, and successful films, while also weathering the storms of several flops that had the potential to derail his career entirely.<\/p>\n Bacon isn\u2019t quite what you\u2019d call an A-list movie star, but he\u2019s also too famous to be known as a character actor. It\u2019s an unusual spot for anyone to find themselves in, and he wonders if that\u2019s the reason<\/a> why he continues to hover around the conversation for the best actors to have never been nominated for an Academy Award.<\/p>\n He\u2019s never been in a movie that\u2019s won \u2018Best Picture\u2019, despite popping up in a few nominees like Apollo 13, JFK, and Mystic River, but he could have been if he hadn\u2019t turned down the chance to play Lieutenant Dan in Robert Zemeckis\u2019 Forrest Gump, one of the defining titles of the 1990s.<\/p>\n He\u2019s never been in a movie that\u2019s earned more than $500 million at the box office, either, with X-Men: First Class his top-grosser at $355 million. He\u2019d have added one to the collection had he not passed on Forrest Gump<\/a>, and there may even have been a second, although he isn\u2019t quite sure if that\u2019s the case or not.<\/p>\n In his defence, not only was it a long time ago, but he was far from the only one who said no. Bruce Willis, Michael J Fox, and Harrison Ford all rejected overtures to play Sam Wheat in Jerry Zucker\u2019s Ghost before Patrick Swayze was cast, which is just as well when the Dirty Dancing favourite said he was ready to kill<\/a> in order to land the part for himself.<\/p>\n Almost every known actor in Bacon\u2019s age range and salary bracket was under consideration, and with three and half decades passing since the casting process got underway, he\u2019s not sure if he declined it or not. \u201cI don\u2019t think I would have turned it down,\u201d he mused to Insider<\/a>. \u201cI have no memory of that.\u201d<\/p>\n It was widely reported at the time that he had, so maybe he\u2019s wiped it from his memory. Either that, or he genuinely can\u2019t recall if he did or didn\u2019t knock it back, not that he regrets it. \u201cBy the way, the other piece of that is Ghost without Patrick Swayze? I don\u2019t know,\u201d he added. \u201cIt could have gone nowhere.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to imagine anyone other than Swayze making sensual spectral pottery with Demi Moore, and would the movie have cleared half a billion dollars at the box office, won two Oscars, earned a \u2018Best Picture\u2019 nod, and ended its theatrical run as the third top-earning release in cinema history with Bacon in the lead? Maybe, maybe not.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ YouTube Still) Sun 21 December 2025 1:00, UK It\u2019s a broad generalisation, but acting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,47328,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-327658","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-kevin-bacon","10":"tag-movies","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}