Kevin Bacon
American actor (born 1958)
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- I think there is a puritanical wind that is blowing. I have never seen such a lack of separation between church and state in America, I don't believe in God, but if I did I would say that sex is a Godgiven right. Otherwise it's the end of our species.
- Let me say this that I don't complain much about it because 95% of celebrity is good. People are very nice to you, they put you up in really nice hotel rooms, they give you free shit, I mean it's basically good. If I'm in a situation, and this rarely happens anymore, where someone doesn't recognize me and treats me like everyone else, I'm horrified. I'm not used to it anymore. That being said, it does get old to have to always be a monkey in a zoo. In the day-to-day thing to have people looking, talking, grabbing, needing something--I don't know what it's like anymore to be anonymous. Until you give it up, it's hard to picture what it's like, but yeah there are times that I do wish that it would go away, if only for a moment. (On being a celebrity)
- Critics can be your most important friend. I don't read criticism of my stuff only because when it's bad, it's rough-and when it's good, it's not good enough.
- (on keeping a successful marriage) Keep your fights clean and your sex dirty.
- I just let the work speak for itself. An actor is not afraid to take risks; to put on different hats; to be a good guy, a bad guy, a victim, an abuser. There are all kinds of people in the world, and playing them is what acting is all about.
- I think of being an actor as kind of a young man's gig. It's emasculating, in a way, people messing with you and putting make-up on you and telling you when to wake up and when to go to sleep, holding your hand to cross the street. I can do it up to a certain point and then I start to feel like a puppet.
- I always wanted, and still aspire, to be something more than just one thing, just one performance.
- I do better on the first three takes; I won't be better at 20 takes.
- (On preparing for his role in Apollo 13 (1995)) Ron (Howard) called me up and said, "we're going up on this zero-G airplane and we, uh - for research. You don't have to go. You don't have to go. Absolutely no pressure. If you don't want to go, you don't have to go. Tom's gonna go. Gary's gonna go. Bill's gonna go. I'm gonna go." You know, everybody was going to go, so of course I'm not going to look like an idiot, you know, I mean I... there is a certain element of my personality that is *slightly* male.
- I'd really like to get the girl, shoot the gun, drive the car, have fun. I even have these kind of action dreams, where I'm the action guy.
- Clint Eastwood has always been a hero.
- I like directing. It takes a lot out of you, but I'd like to do it again-I just have to find a story I want to tell.
- (about his preference for being nude when at home) There's something therapeutic about nudity. Clothing is one of the external things about a character. Take away the Gucci or Levis and we're all the same. But not when the nanny is around. But I will with my wife and kids.
- The business that people do in LA on the social level is amazing. You go to a restaurant, bump into this guy or that guy. The next day you get a call, and they want you in their movie.
- (on playing a pedophile in The Woodsman (2004)) I don't have people who would advise me against this based on some sort of "image". At some point you have to decide if you're going to be a personality or you're going to be an actor. If playing this kind of a role could have a negative effect on my public personality, I don't care. I'll play anything, if I think there's something compelling, or there's a director I'm dying to work with, or a part I hadn't done before or a co-star I think is great.
- All roles are hard in different ways. Some are physical. Actually the hardest role physically I did was the Hollow Man and I was invisible in the movie. But it was incredibly, physically taxing and it got delayed. Murder in the First was both physically and emotionally terribly difficult.
- I think of myself more as a workhorse actor. It will be hot and cold and up and down, but no one will kick me out of the business.
- I've heard people say you have to love the characters you play. I don't feel that way. I've played a lot of people that I don't love at all. What's important to me is to try to make them real.
- There are two types of actors: performers and personalities.
- I've made three studio albums and one live one with my brother. It's melodic singer-songwriter acoustic-rock music.
- There are some actor secrets you keep sometimes, and you want to keep.
- I have a natural swagger.
- It was one of the spookiest jobs I've ever had, but Alcatraz was not the problem. Most of the film was done in L.A. I'm in this four-by-six cell--wet, naked, covered in shit, live bugs in my hair, live rats chewing on my leg, Chained to the walls for a lot of it. Being beaten by Gary Oldman; of course, I can't think of anyone I would rather be beaten by. One day, it was four-thirty on a Monday morning, we'd been working all night, and the ground started shaking. We were right near the epicenter. It was a horrible experience. Here I was, naked, shackled in this cell, and just every day playing some new level of agony. It was the closest I'd ever come to losing it. I'd cry on the way to work. (On filming Murder in the First during the 1994 Northridge earthquake)
- If you're an actor, even a successful one, you're still waiting for the phone to ring.