By Donald Chase
Newsday, February 20, 1986

Kevin Bacon, the 27-year-old actor who starred in the 1984 smash hit"Footloose" and currently can be seen in "Quicksilver," laughs when he'sasked about doubles.

In "Quicksilver," now at local theaters, Bacon plays a stock optionstrader who after a run of ill luck becomes a bicycle messenger, and hedid more than his share  -  though not all  -  of hischaracter's 10-speeding in and out of traffic.

"Moviegoers have become so sophisticated, so able to spot where a doubletakes over, and seeing the real actor's face in closeup can help so muchin putting over an action scene," he said. "So I wanted to do as much ofmy own riding in `Quicksilver' as I could, short of putting myself in realdanger.

"And yet," he continued, "it's tough emotionally when you spend twomonths with a special action unit  -  no dialogue, no sound -  and your only `acting' is looking this way or that way, fallingto the ground, breathing harder. You come close to forgetting why you wantedto do the role to begin with."

Bacon's conversation is filled with "and yet," "even so" and "on theother hand." The actor, who first scored as the tortured,
uncommunicative Fenwick of "Diner," agilely point-counterpoints himselfon every issue.

Point: "I come from the theater"  -  "Forty Deuce" and "PoorLittle Lambs" Off-Broadway, "Slab Boys" on Broadway and "Loot," now atthe Manhattan Theater Club  -  "where you play the text, so theirreverence toward the written dialogue in movies was shocking to me atfirst."

Counterpoint: "And yet  -  movies are such an intimate mediumand falseness registers so hugely on screen that it's maybe a good ideato change words that don't work for you. At the end of `Footloose,' I burst into a room and run into close-up and scream, `Let's dance!' I knew whenI was doing it that it was bad, even though it was needed dramatically,and in the finished film it drives me nuts, it's so false, it looks terrible."

Point: "I don't consciously relate a character to my own experience. . . I think of my characters as being vastly different from myself, andalways go to see the films expecting to see someone else  - Spencer Tracy, maybe  -  up there."

Counterpoint: "Instead, all I see is me. And my best moment  - not whole performances, just moments  -  are the ones where I'mmost like me."