29 Interesting Facts About Footloose

Name: Footloose
Released: 1984

Interesting Facts (22)

#001
The scenes in which Chris Penn's character has to learn to dance were added to the script because Penn genuinely could not dance.
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#002
The dancing feet in the opening credits sequence featured many cast and crew members. More than 150 different feet were filmed. The dancer in the gold shoes was Kenny Loggins.
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#003
The film is loosely based on events that took place in 1978 in Elmore City, a small, rural and deeply religious farming town in Oklahoma. Dancing had been banned for nearly ninety years until a group of high school students pushed back against the ban.
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#004
To celebrate the film's 40th anniversary, Bacon visited the Payson High School filming location on April 20, 2024 and attended its prom.
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#005
In the scene where Reverend Shaw shows Ren a photograph of his late son Bobby, John Lithgow showed a photograph of his own real son Ian, who also appears in the film.
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#006
Gene Siskel was one of the few critics who liked the film. Despite his complaints, he wrote, "Parts of the plot are ridiculous. For example, if the preacher is so strict, why does he allow his daughter to walk around in tight jeans and no bra? But that's really for us. (The audience)."
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#007
With the principal's knowledge, 24-year-old Kevin Bacon enrolled at Payson Utah High School as "Ren McCormack" and began his stint as a transfer student from Philadelphia. With his narrow tie and new wave haircut, he was treated almost as he was in the film. Bacon thankfully left the first day in the afternoon with the location scouts.
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#008
Kevin Bacon styled his hair after the spiky look of rocker Sting, of whom he was a big fan of The Police at the time. In one of the scenes he mentions the band.
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#009
In the DVD commentary, Kevin Bacon revealed that the extras in the men's locker room scene were paid twenty dollars each to appear naked.
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#010
The character Willard Hewitt (not even named in the original script) was specifically rewritten by screenwriter Dean Pitchford with Chris Penn in mind.
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#011
When Kevin Bacon had to shoot the City Council scene, in which he presents the rationale for organizing a prom, he broke out in hives on his midsection. The actor said he was uncomfortable speaking in front of a crowd but never had hives again.
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#012
In the liner notes of the reissued Footloose soundtrack (1999), Kenny Loggins provides a short introduction in which he mentions that the film's screenplay was largely based on real events from the youth of his longtime friend Dean Pitchford.
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#013
The two girls who play Ren's young cousins, Mimi and Meghan Broadhead, are real sisters and live in Utah. Besides Mimi and Meghan Broadhead, their father, J. Paul Broadhead, appears as Mayor Dooley in the town hall scene, while their mother and two brothers play extras.
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#014
Daryl Hannah turned down the offer to play Ariel Moore in order to play Madison in Splash (1984). Elizabeth McGovern turned down the role of Ariel to play Deborah Gelly in Once Upon a Time in America (1984). The role of Ariel was offered to Melanie Griffith, Michelle Pfeiffer, Jamie Lee Curtis, Rosanna Arquette, Meg Tilly, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Heather Locklear, Meg Ryan, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jodie Foster, Phoebe Cates, Tatum O'Neal, Bridget Fonda, Lori Loughlin, Diane Lane and Brooke Shields, but they all declined.
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#015
Craft services had a very hard time keeping Pepperidge Farms Mint Milanos in stock for the cast. Mint Milanos were the favorite snack of everyone working on the film. They had to drive as far as Salt Lake City, 30 miles north, to find these cookies.
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#016
The film was originally rated R, but it was re-edited to receive a PG rating by removing the use of the f-word and a scene featuring nude men.
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#017
Payson High School, where shooting began in May 1983, looked the same as it did in the '80s before a fully updated renovation in the spring of 2025. Inside Ren's locker, which appears several times in the film, there was a sign with a plaque reading "Congrats! You've got Kevin Bacon's locker!"
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#018
The high school in this film is located in Payson, Utah, 37 miles from the Lehi Roller Mills where Ren works.
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#019
Although it is based on the true story of a dance banned in the small town of Elmore, Dean Pitchford actually did his research on small-town high school life in the town of Ardmore, OK, which has a population of about 25,000. Pitchford spent time interviewing students at one of the town's high schools (Ardmore HS) and socializing with them outside school hours. However, dancing was never banned in Ardmore by the city or by its largest school district.
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#020
None of the stars of this film are professional dancers. Lori Singer, Kevin Bacon, Sarah Jessica Parker and Chris Penn are not dancers, though Singer and Parker at least have some musical experience; Singer had previously appeared in the Fame (1982) series and Parker had appeared on Broadway in Annie.
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#021
This is the first and only film of real-life sisters Meghan and Mimi Broadhead. According to her sister Mimi, Meghan Broadhead tragically struggled with mental health problems and died in 2019.
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#022
Christopher Atkins was initially signed to play Ren McCormack. He lost the role because of alcoholism, having arrived at a pre-shooting meeting with the producers completely drunk and disheveled. The role then went to Rob Lowe, who had to drop out because of a knee injury and was ultimately replaced by Kevin Bacon.
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Production Story (2)

#023
In his biography "Still Alright," Kenny Loggins revealed that in the final scene, where the kids dance at the prom, the actors were actually dancing not to his song "Footloose" but to Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode." Loggins's song was added during post-production.
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#024
Michael Cimino was initially hired as director. He was fired when he asked for a $250,000 advance to rewrite the entire script before shooting. (The film's total budget was only $7.5 million.)
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Behind the Scenes (2)

#025
In a 2013 interview with Howard Stern, Kevin Bacon admitted that he tips DJs at weddings not to play "Footloose." He said people expect him to dance to the song as he did in the film. In reality, while he performed some of the dancing, he also had a double dancing for him.
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#026
Herbert Ross choreographed Funny Girl, among many other Hollywood musicals. He also directed Steel Magnolias, another simple poem for Americana, five years later; it was another big hit for him, although he was accused of being a very cruel taskmaster behind the camera and of bullying his leading ladies.
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Characters & Cast (2)

#027
Kevin Bacon was offered the lead role in the Stephen King film Christine (1983) and was also asked to do a screen test for Footloose (1984). The producers had to convince Bacon that turning down a certain role in "Christine" for a role he might not even get in "Footloose" was the smarter choice. The producers told him that if he got the role in "Footloose," it would make him a star. Thirty seconds before the screen test, the role was offered to Bacon. He then had to fight to keep it, because producer Sherry Lansing said he was not sexy enough to star in a youth-oriented film like this. It took weeks for Herbert Ross to tell him he was sexy; and several new screen tests had to be done to change her mind. But it worked, and the rest is history.
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#028
Tom Cruise and Rob Lowe were planned for the lead roles. Casting directors were impressed by Cruise's famous underwear dance scene in Risky Business (1983), but he could not take the role because he was shooting All the Right Moves (1983). Lowe auditioned three times and had the dance ability and the "neutral teen" look director Herbert Ross wanted, but he tore his knee and the injury prevented him from getting the part. After watching Diner (1982), Ross had to persuade the producers to go with Kevin Bacon.
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Life & Family (1)

#029
During the filming of Dr. Solomon's Traveling Alien Show (1998), one of the actors playing a circus dictator took John Lithgow aside and shared a personal story with him. He said he came from a small town in Louisiana and that his own father, a Baptist preacher, would not allow his children to dance or listen to rock 'n' roll. When he saw 'Footloose,' he explained that Lithgow's 'preacher' was based on his own father. After bringing his father to see the film without any warning about its subject matter, his father was so moved by Lithgow's performance that the man said he was the first of six children allowed to attend his own high school prom.
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Dirty Dancing — Footloose comes up in the facts on that page
Michael Cimino — Footloose comes up in the facts on that page
John Lithgow — Footloose comes up in the facts on that page

Sources & editorial notes

Reference databases

IMDb IMDb title page (trivia)

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