1984’s Footloose is one of the most beloved movies ever. The musical drama follows Kevin Bacon’s character, teenager Ren McCormack, as he moves to the fictional small Utah town of Bomont from Chicago. There, he makes it his mission to overturn a ban on dancing imposed by John Lithgow’s strict local minister, Reverend Shaw Moore.
Aided by a monumentally catchy soundtrack that includes Kenny Loggins’ “Footloose” and Deniece Williams’ “Let’s Hear It for the Boy,” Footloose was a huge success, grossing more than $80 million, making it the seventh highest-grossing movie of the year, ahead of the likes of Romancing the Stone, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Splash, and Purple Rain.
The film also features some genuinely iconic dance scenes — including the sequence when Bacon’s character really lets loose, dancing alone in a warehouse and catching the attention of his love interest, Ariel Moore, played by Lori Singer.
But did Kevin Bacon actually do all the dancing we see his character perform in Footloose, or were audiences duped by some sneaky movie magic?
While Bacon can dance and has received extensive training in the arts of dancing and gymnastics for his role in Footloose, he didn’t perform all of the dancing his character does in the film.
In a 2013 interview with Howard Stern on The Howard Stern Show, he explained that there were some scenes in which he had a double to perform the moves he could not execute.
“I had a lot of training, training in gymnastics, I had, you know, a couple of doubles in a couple of things I couldn’t do.”
Bacon also told the host that he’s tired of attending events, such as weddings and bar mitzvahs, where the music from Footloose is played, and he’s expected to get up and perform his character’s famous steps for everyone in attendance. He even admitted to tipping DJs so they wouldn’t play the records to avoid being coerced into dancing along to them.
That being said, in November 2023, to celebrate the end of the SAG-AFTRA strike, Bacon posted a video on his Instagram where he recreates one of his classic dances from the movie, with Kenny Loggins’ “Footloose” playing over it and the caption “Strike over!” He’s still got it!
So, next time you watch Footloose, see if you can spot Bacon’s dance double, the late Peter Tramm, doing some of the film’s more complex moves.
