Kevin Bacon lower free once more over the weekend, returning to the highschool the place he filmed the teenager traditional Footloose greater than 40 years in the past.
And it wasn’t simply any day that the acclaimed actor popped into Utah’s Payson Excessive—it was promenade evening.
“Go Lions!” the 65-year-old actor greeted the group. “It’s been a very long time—40 years—that simply blows my thoughts, you already know. Issues look a bit totally different round right here. I’d say the factor that appears essentially the most totally different is me.”
The actor’s return was the results of a fruitful student-led marketing campaign to get him again on campus for his or her faculty dance, many years after the foot-stomping film’s launch. They unfold the hashtag #bacontopayson on social media for months to try to get his consideration. “After I first heard about this Bacon to Payson factor, I used to be like ‘Wow, that is loopy.’ However you have been all simply tireless,” the actor continued. “I believe it’s nice to see that type of dedication to something.”
“I additionally assume that it’s wonderful the facility that this film has needed to simply type of deliver individuals collectively, and join on the fundamental concepts there are behind the film—you already know, standing as much as authority generally, and to being forgiving to people who find themselves not precisely the identical as you, and for standing up to your personal freedoms and your proper to specific your self, and for having compassion for different individuals,” he added.
It didn’t damage that the scholars deliberate to help Bacon’s basis, SixDegrees.org, as a part of their effort to recruit him again to campus. The scholars pledged to supply 5,000 of the inspiration’s meant 40,000 “important useful resource kits” for faculties as a present of gratitude for Bacon’s particular visitor look at their promenade.
“And that’s what all of you’ve got proven right here, by turning what could possibly be only a film star coming again to get a pat on the again, into one thing actually optimistic. And that’s what we’re going to do right now after we construct these kits,” Bacon instructed the scholars.
“Thanks a lot to your dedication to giving again to your neighborhood and to the individuals you’re sharing this planet with, and I’m thrilled we’re going to be working right here collectively right now.”