Kevin Bacon's day in disguise reveals unexpected realities

Kevin Bacon's disguise experiment revealed the challenges of being unrecognized, making him appreciate his fame.

In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, actor Kevin Bacon revealed an experiment where he disguised himself as a “regular person” for a day, which led to some surprising realizations. Bacon, known for his iconic roles and recognizable face, described the elaborate process he underwent to transform his appearance.

“I went to a special effects makeup artist, had consultations, and asked him to make me a prosthetic disguise,” Bacon told Vanity Fair. The transformation included fake teeth, a different nose, and a pair of glasses. Bacon tested his new look at The Grove, a popular shopping area in Los Angeles.

Despite the success of his disguise, Bacon found the experience less enjoyable than he had imagined. “Nobody recognized me,” he said. “People were kind of pushing past me, not being nice. Nobody said, ‘I love you.’ I had to wait in line to, I don’t know, buy a coffee or whatever. I was like, This sucks. I want to go back to being famous.”

Bacon’s career has been marked by numerous accolades and the creation of the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” game, which humorously suggests that anyone in Hollywood can be linked to him through six connections or fewer. Initially, Bacon felt insecure about the game, thinking it mocked his career. “I thought the joke was, ‘Can you believe that such a lightweight could be connected to Laurence Olivier or Meryl Streep or whatever in six steps or less?’” he said on The Corp podcast in 2019.

However, Bacon later embraced the game’s underlying message of interconnectedness. “If you take me out of it, the concept is actually beautiful because it shows that we are all connected — and not only are we connected, but we hunger for connections,” he told PEOPLE.