The role Kevin Bacon turned down because his wife told him to: “No, that’s too far”
There aren’t many actors who’ve been around as long as Kevin Bacon and remained as famous who’ve played such a diverse range of roles. If there’s a character type, he’s almost definitely played it, apart from the time his wife’s phobias made him turn one of them down.
He’s played bounty hunters resurrected by the devil, invisible men, heroes, villains, sex offenders, grieving fathers, vengeful fathers, grieving widowers, vengeful widowers, happy family men, politicians, police officers, federal agents, military officers, and even Kevin Bacon, in The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special.
If there’s a part on offer, he’ll happily do it, because once he recovered from the post-Footloose acts of self-sabotage that almost ruined his career, the veteran decided that the smartest way to secure longevity in a place as ruthless as Hollywood was to show everyone that there was nothing he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do.
It’s worked out pretty well for him so far, with Bacon approaching the 50th anniversary of his feature debut in the classic 1978 comedy, Animal House, and he hasn’t gone out of fashion yet. He’s been in eight films and two TV shows since the beginning of 2022 alone, and as much as he navigates his own path through the industry, he still has to defer to the missus on occasion.
He’s been married to Kyra Sedgwick since 1988, and while they’ve enjoyed independently successful careers, they’ve collaborated on many pictures, including Murder in the First, Loverboy, and Cop Car, to name only three. They do their own thing as working actors, but sometimes, she gets the final word.
She didn’t have any issue with her husband playing a paedophile in The Woodsman, and she had no problem with him playing a sadistic and child-abusing prison guard in Sleepers, but when he was offered the chance to dance to the song he can’t stand while dressed as an M&M, she put her foot down.
“It is true that I had to turn down dancing to ‘Footloose’ dressed as a giant peanut M&M for a commercial,” he confirmed to The Guardian. “Because my wife doesn’t like it when food talks. It’s just a thing she has. If she sees a talking grape, it freaks her out. When there was a possibility I might be a talking M&M, she just said, ‘No, that’s too far.'”
Apparently, the only way the Bacon family will interfere in each other’s professional lives is if one of them is offered the opportunity to become an anthropomorphised foodstuff, which is nothing if not unusual. Since Sedgwick can’t stand the sight of things you’re supposed to eat gaining sentience, the conversation was a non-starter, with the JFK and Tremors alum refusing to rock the boat by going against her wishes.
If you had 100 guesses at trying to figure out which role Kevin Bacon’s wife wouldn’t let him play, there’s not a hope in hell you’d have guessed it was a peanut M&M with a fondness for Kenny Loggins’ title track to his star-making performance. He could have done it anyway and just not let her watch it, but that wasn’t a conversation he was willing to have.
