Kevin Bacon, whose name has become emblematic of show business connections, had only one scant theater contact when he left his Philadelphia area high school to pursue acting in New York -- but he built on it to become one Hollywood’s busiest actors. Bacon, who appears with Renee Zellweger in “My One and Only,” opening Friday, and is up for an Emmy for his starring role in HBO’s “Taking Chance,” points to two jobs he didn’t take as turning points in his career. He spoke with Eric Estrin about channeling “smarmy,” choosing New York over Hollywood and the myth of the big break.
When I was a teenager, I did as much theater around Philadelphia as I possibly could -- community theater, school plays and stuff. But when I got out of high school I said OK, I’ve gotta get out of here, I’ve gotta get to New York.
I auditioned for Circle in the Square’s theater school. They had a two-year program that I was able to get into, and I came to New York with a suitcase and a dream kind of thing. I knocked on doors, dropped pictures and resumes off, worked as a waiter off and on for four years, you know, pounded the pavement.
I didn’t have any connections at all. Actually, wait -- now that I think about it, I had a cousin who directed a children’s theater tour around the Springfield, Massachusetts, area, and she called me up and cast me in an Equity show. So I got an Equity card, which was a huge thing. That enabled me to go on open Equity calls.
In a strange kind of way, I’ve always felt that “the big break” is a bit of a myth. For me it was all baby steps. I was eventually able to get into a showcase, which got me an agent, who got me a small part in a show off-Broadway.
Then I got “Animal House,” which was amazing. A casting director came to Circle in the Square and said, Do you have any preppie, freshman, wet-behind-the-ears types, and they sent me over. I only had one or two lines, which I read for John Landis. I remember he said to me, Can you make a smarmy face? I had no idea what smarmy meant, so I made a face that I thought was what smarmy sounded like. It was like onomatopoeia. They called me back and then called me up in my apartment one night and said I had the job.
I was there for seven weeks because I had a lot of scenes in the background, even though I didn’t have many lines. I played this guy named Chip Diller, one of the asshole bad guys.
When the movie came out, they made a series out of it, and they asked me to be in the series. And there was a three-line part in a play in New York at an off-off Broadway theater.
