There's this American dream to put enough away that you can golf and build a birdhouse or just be in a Barcalounger watching football all day. I'll never be that guy. And I'm not really sure the people who have that are all that happy. Our desires as a man are to work, plow ahead, and overcome conflict.
— Kevin Bacon
I started working in the mid-to-late Seventies, when television was not what it is now.
Show me an actor who doesn't want to be famous, and I'll show you a liar. Later, you realise that there's more to it than just the acquisition of fame, and money and girls. But that is what drives them and was what drove me, initially.
I think of being an actor as kind of a young man's gig. It's emasculating, in a way, people messing with you and putting make-up on you and telling you when to wake up and when to go to sleep, holding your hand to cross the street. I can do it up to a certain point, and then I start to feel like a puppet.
Part of being a man is learning to take responsibility for your successes and for your failures. You can't go blaming others or being jealous. Seeing somebody else's success as your failure is a cancerous way to live.
I'm a vagabond. I have a suitcase that is ready to go at a moment's notice. The thought of being in one place for a long time, or playing one character for a long time, is terrifying for me.
My kids don't watch my movies. What I want to do is go home and hug my kids, talk to them and engage with them.
When I go home, I try to raise my children with honesty and integrity and teach them to take care of the world and of each other.
Here's the thing - I mean, I don't act for statues. I really don't. The great thing about winning an award is that it creates opportunities.
If you look at films about becoming a man, coming-of-age movies are made with 12-, 16-, 40-, 50-year-olds... For a guy to feel like he's a 100 percent grown-up is almost like giving up. Like admitting that you're on your way into the grave.
There is a lesson there about greed and it is a lesson I am willing to learn as well. Has it made me a distrustful person? I don't think so. But we probably look a bit more carefully at our financial situation now.
Things could be worse. You remember that, and you go on with your life.
Some people have therapy, some people are alcoholics or they're in AA. Some people jump out of planes on weekends or find ways to release this kind of thing. And for me, it's acting. I find acting very therapeutic for whatever it is.
There are very few things that are purely conceptual without any hard content.
The business that people do in LA on the social level is amazing. You go to a restaurant, bump into this guy or that guy. The next day you get a call, and they want you in their movie.
It does get old to have to always be a monkey in a zoo. I don't know what it's like any more to be anonymous.
I've made three studio albums and one live one with my brother. It's melodic singer-songwriter acoustic-rock music.
'Animal House' was my first movie, so I didn't have anything to compare it to. I was a sight gag more than anything else. So I can't say it was one of those things where your life changes. When the movie came out, I had to ask for the night off at the bar.
I've played a lot of bad guys, and I'm pretty good at leaving my work at the office. And I look at acting as having a certain sort of therapeutic nature to it.
Fame is very much a double-edged sword.
I want to see the numbers that prove that show-business marriages are any less successful than other marriages. It's just very public when they fail.
My dad was an architect, and he wasn't a rich guy, but in our little world in Philadelphia, he was famous. He loved to see his picture in the paper. I wanted to be more famous than him.
When it comes to music, it's my clothes, it's my guitar, it's my voice, it's my song.
I feel like my responsibility as an actor is to make characters as compelling and believable as possible.
I've been in silly movies and romantic movies and historic movies.
With a lot of actors, you've got to chip through the surface to see who the real person is.
I'll be honest with you. My kids don't watch my movies and never have. I can maybe name a film one hand that they've seen, actually, all the way through.
When it happened to us and it was all gone overnight, we said, 'We are in this together, we are healthy, our children are healthy and we can work'.
I'm obsessed with zombies. I like watching zombie movies and I read zombie books.
I really believe that all of us have a lot of darkness in our souls. Anger, rage, fear, sadness. I don't think that's only reserved for people who have horrible upbringings. I think it really exists and is part of the human condition. I think in the course of your life you figure out ways to deal with that.
There are some actor secrets you keep sometimes, and you want to keep.
Ninety-five percent of celebrity is good.
If you're an actor, even a successful one, you're still waiting for the phone to ring.
I'm always happier and a better actor when I can really lose myself in a character and become somebody else.
My father was into fame and leaving his mark. He was a city planner, sort of a genius in that world, the Robert Moses of Philadelphia. He was on the cover of 'Time' once, and I remember going to his office and seeing, like, two hundred copies, which he would hand out to people.
Kevin's mind goes to extremely interesting places. Every time we get a script, I go, 'Oh my God, I really didn't see that coming'.
There are two types of actors: those who say they don't want to be famous, and those who are liars.
I think of myself more as a workhorse actor. It will be hot and cold and up and down, but no one will kick me out of the business.
My family survived losing money to Bernie Madoff incredibly well compared to others.
My brother is the lifelong musician; he made the choice to do that when we were very, very young kids. I remember him playing in bands and listening to the music he was writing in the house - he's nine years older than me.
I try to show compassion to people I come into contact with and try to put good out, as much good as I can. But that's my life; that's not my work. With my work, my job is to walk in another man's shoes.
There are two things that create opportunities. One is being involved with something that makes money, and the other is winning awards. And the reason that winning the awards creates the opportunities is because it gives the people who are selling the picture the opportunity to make more money.
I'm very comfortable being married to an extremely strong, opinionated, and driven woman. But I also sit at the head of the table. I have both of those sides to me.
I would say invisibility would be sort of a fun power to have just to see what it was like to move through the world and not be looked at.
I think one of the most pervasive evils in this world is greed and acquiring money for money's sake. Once you have six houses and a plane, it's just about a number. It's never been anything I understood.
I don't watch the movies I make, so I haven't seen 'Footloose' since it came out. You see this young, hungry actor, it's pretty fun. I was the only one they screen tested. It was an attempt by the director and producer to talk the head of the studio into hiring me because they didn't want me.
There's the most resistance to an actor singing. It's like I'm being disloyal to my industry.
There are people who tell you to shut up because you're just a celebrity, but pundits, talking heads, they're every bit the celebrity and a lot of them aren't any more qualified than the average man on the street.
L.A. kind of scares me.
If I'm in a situation where someone doesn't recognize me and treats me like everyone else, I'm not used to it.
