Kevin Bacon Reveals Whether He Turned Down Patrick Swayze’s Iconic Role in ‘Ghost’
Kevin Bacon is setting the record straight.
In an interview with Business Insider published on Wednesday, July 10, Bacon, 66, laid rest to a longstanding rumor that he turned down the lead role of Sam Wheat in 1990’s Ghost. The iconic part eventually went to the late Patrick Swayze.
"No, I wish,” he responded when asked if he was offered the part. "I don't think I would've turned it down. I mean, I have no memory of that."
"And by the way, the other piece of that is Ghost without Patrick Swayze — I don't know. It could have gone nowhere,” Bacon added.
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Ghost — famous for that pottery scene between Swayze and Demi Moore — was the highest-grossing movie of 1990, beating Home Alone and Pretty Woman. It also earned Whoopi Goldberg the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of psychic Oda Mae Brown.
In 2015, Ghost screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin revealed that the script was sent out to “every major actor in Hollywood who was hot at the time,” but “everybody” turned it down.
“Harrison Ford said, ‘I read this thing three times and I still don’t get it,’” Rubin told Vanity Fair. “Michael J. Fox, Paul Hogan, on and on, we kept getting turned down.”
Rubin added that he believed the actors “didn’t want to play dead men” and that “when Patrick said yes, he basically saved the movie.”
Bacon, who is currently starring in MaXXXine, recently sent pulses racing with a thirst-trap selfie to mark his 66th birthday on Monday, July 8.
“This is 66. ??,” Bacon captioned a shirtless selfie he posted via Instagram on Monday.
Bacon’s wife Kyra Sedgwick commented: “Not too shabby! ??”
The Footloose actor also revealed to Vanity Fair earlier this month that he once tried to go incognito in Los Angeles but realized that fame has its perks.
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“I went to a special effects makeup artist, had consultations, and asked him to make me a prosthetic disguise,” he explained.
Walking around Los Angeles’ The Grove mall, Bacon said his disguise worked a little too well.
“Nobody recognized me,” Bacon said. “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 f–king coffee or whatever. I was like, ‘This sucks. I want to go back to being famous.’”