Video: Kevin Bacon Visits FOOTLOOSE High School Prior to Demolition

According to ABC4, Kevin Bacon paid a visit to the high school where Footloose was partially filmed 40 years ago on the school's final prom night. The school is scheduled to be demolished and move to a new building.

In a speech to the Payson High School student body, Bacon said: “Go Lions! Here we are on this beautiful, beautiful spot on this beautiful, beautiful day. It’s been a long time – 40 years – that just blows my mind, you know. Things look a little different around here. I’d say the thing that looks the most different is me.”

Bacon accepted the invitation after students launched a campaign for the actor to visit, and supported Bacon's foundation SixDegrees.org by creating 5,000 “essential resources kits” on the day of Bacon's appearance in return. 

“When I first heard about this Bacon to Payson thing, I was like ‘Wow, this is crazy.’ But you were all just tireless. Unrelenting … You talked me into it,” Bacon said. “I think it’s great to see that kind of commitment to anything. I also think that it’s amazing the power that this movie has had to just kind of bring people together, and connect on the basic ideas there are behind the movie – you know, standing up to authority sometimes, and to being forgiving to people who are not exactly the same as you, and for standing up for your own freedoms and your right to express yourself, and for having compassion for other people.”

Footloose, written by Dean Pitchford and directed by Herbert Ross, was released in 1984. It also starred Lori Singer, Dianne Wiest and John Lithgow. The film's musical adaptation played Broadway from 1998-2000.