Kevin Bacon’s acting resume is filled with standout performances and missed opportunities, but there’s one tidbit of movie trivia he’d like to get straight to the truth about: When asked if he really turned down the role of Sam Wheat in Ghost, a role that was ultimately played by Patrick Swayze, he shook his head.
“No, I wish I had,” Bacon told Business Insider’s Caralynn Matassa in the latest installment of his role-playing interview series. “I don’t think I would have said no, and I don’t remember that happening.”
Bacon praised Swayze for being the right choice, adding, “The other thing, by the way, is that without Patrick Swayze, ‘Ghost’ would be who knows what it would have been. It might not have gone anywhere.”
Kevin Bacon says he would have been remembered even if he had turned down a role in the film “Ghost” starring Patrick Swayze. Paramount Pictures/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images
In Jerry Zucker’s 1990 film Ghost, Swayze plays Sam, a murdered bank clerk whose ghost attempts to rescue his girlfriend, Molly Jensen (Demi Moore), from danger with the help of psychic medium Oda Mae Brown (Whoopi Goldberg) after his death.
In his 2009 memoir, “The Time of My Life,” which he co-wrote with his wife, Lisa Niemi, Swayze said that after reading the script, he felt he was perfect for the role, but that Zucker was reluctant. Instead, Swayze said that several big Hollywood actors were “under consideration” for the role, including Bacon, Alec Baldwin, Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford and Tom Hanks.
Swayze auditioned, performed six scenes, and convinced Zucker that he was perfect for the role.
The film was a huge box office success, grossing $505.7 million on a production budget of $22 million. Ghost was nominated for five Academy Awards, with Goldberg winning for Best Supporting Actress, after Swayze fought hard for the role.
Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze starred together in Ghost. Paramount Pictures
Bacon said that even though he didn’t turn down the role in “Ghost,” there are still roles he’d like to take that he missed out on, but that he accepts it because it’s part of the job.
“Being an actor, you’re constantly getting rejected. You just get closer your whole life. I guess the only one that comes to mind is ‘Raising Arizona,'” Bacon said, referring to the 1997 film directed by Joel and Ethan Coen and starring Nicolas Cage.
“Part of it is because I love the Coen brothers,” he says, “and they’ve made so many great movies since, but I met them and totally ruined them, so this movie is very close to my heart.”
