The one thing left on Kevin Bacon’s career bucket list: “Maybe it will happen, maybe it won’t”
Whenever Kevin Bacon calls it quits on his acting career, if he ever does, he won’t look back with too many regrets. Rules are made to have exceptions, though, and there’s still one major item of unfinished business that he’s becoming increasingly keen to tick off his bucket list.
It’s been almost 50 years since he made his screen debut in the classic comedy, Animal House, and the only movie he really wished he’d been cast in that he didn’t get was the Coen brothers’ Raising Arizona, which isn’t bad going, especially when you remember that he turned down Forrest Gump‘s Lieutenant Dan.
The only character he’s ever played that he wanted to reprise was Tremors’ Val McKee, and he did, technically. The solitary sequel in Bacon’s filmography was the pilot episode for a TV show that wasn’t ordered to series, so at least he got to scratch the itch of returning to familiar territory.
Friday the 13th made him an indelible part of an iconic franchise, he’s dabbled in two different superhero universes, Footloose made him a household name, Hollow Man gave him leading man status in a big-budget blockbuster, he’s headlined Broadway productions, he’s been in countless acclaimed films, and he’s worked with some of the biggest and brightest talents on either side of the camera.
He’s written, he’s directed, he’s produced, he’s a happily married family man, he’s become a cultural icon and a meme through the ‘Six Degrees’ game, he’s won a Golden Globe, been in several Academy Award-winning movies, including a couple of ‘Best Picture’ nominees, and generally seems happy with his lot.
Knowing all of that, what continues to linger like an unwanted spectre over Bacon’s career? He only has one regret, he’s been around the block and back several times, and he seems content and fulfilled with everything that acting has given him. Everything, that is, except an Oscar nomination.
“I’d love to get one,” he confessed to Parade. “There’s only one reason why I haven’t, and that’s because members of the Academy haven’t seen anything I’ve done that they thought was of Oscar value.” Yes, Kevin, that’s how these things work, but ever the modest sort, he sees the bigger picture and wonders what it wouldn’t do for just him, but the small-scale projects he loves making.
“What’s great about the Oscar thing is that it opens up opportunities, because it helps certain movies get made,” he elaborated. “It’s a little harder to get parts when you don’t have ‘Oscar winner’ or ‘Oscar nominee’ in front of your name. Maybe it will happen someday. Maybe it won’t.”
Has Bacon ever given a genuinely Oscar-worthy performance? It’s debatable. Is he one of the best actors of his generation who’s never even been shortlisted for one? He is. It’s in the hands of the movie gods like it always has been, and there’s still plenty of time for him to conquer that final frontier.
