Could you imagine Footloose without Kevin Bacon? Well according the actor, who is six degrees from every actor in Hollywood, that was almost the case. He told Details magazine, “Craig Zadan, one of the producers on both films (referring to the sh!tty remake that’s coming out in the fall), actually found my screen test in a vault and sent it to me. What had been going on back then was the producers and the director wanted me, but the head of the studio famously said, ‘He’s just not fuckable.’ So they went and did their own screen test. Watching it, I got a chance to see this kid with this hunger and ambition and energy. There were parts of myself that I didn’t even recognize. You could just see that I was going to fuckin’ go in there and kill it.” Thankfully he nailed the screen test because he is the only actor that I could ever see playing Ren McCormack.
BTW according to Rob Lowe’s must read autobiography Stories I Only Tell My Friends, he auditioned for the role, but he blew his knew and the audition when he attempted that infamous slide that Bacon perfected!
