After students enthusiastically campaigned for the actor to revisit the school 40 years later, Kevin Bacon obliged.
Let's hear it for Kevin Bacon -- because the Footloose alum returned to the movie's real high school 40 years later just in time for prom.
After nearly 50 years in Hollywood, Bacon's performance as Ren McCormack in the 1984 box office smash Footloose has not been forgotten. Exhibit A: students at Payson High School enthusiastically campaigning to get him to return to the building where he actually filmed in time for their final prom before the school relocates. On Saturday, that wish came true as Bacon set foot on campus for the first time in 40 years, perfectly timed with the movie musical's milestone anniversary in February.
During his visit, 65-year-old Bacon walked the halls where he famously danced in the film, opened the locker he used as his character, stood in the cafeteria, and met with the students that so eagerly awaited his visit.
"Things looks a little different around here," he said during a speech addressing all the students who assembled for his visit. "I’d say the thing that looks the most different is me."
As part of his visit, Bacon, Payson High School students and members of the Payson community worked with Bacon's nonprofit organization, Six Degrees.org, and assembled and distributed 5,000 essential resource kits for young people and families in nearby states.
If one thing was clear from Bacon's visit, it is that Footloose remains an integral part of the actor's story.
"Forty years. That’s one of those movies. It did change my life," Bacon previously told ET. "To say nothing else would not be true. I was working and I knew I’d be an actor for the long haul, but I thought a character actor -- which I am -- but this took over people’s psyche for that moment and my life switched."
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