It’s “really cool” to be a hero in Guardians of the Galaxy

The galaxy has an unexpected new Guardian just in time for the holiday season.

Kevin Bacon, 64, made a surprise cameo in last month’s trailer for The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, which premiered on Disney+ on Friday. And while Marvel fanboys and fangirls alike loved his casting, none were more over the moon than Bacon himself.

“Listen, I love doing things like that. For me, films are this huge playground. I can play and a grown man can just fool around and have fun,” Bacon, 64, recently told The Post. “I take my work very seriously, but with something like ‘Guardians,’ sometimes you have to stop and say, ‘Oh shit, that’s really cool!’ I had a really, really fun gig.”

In the film spinoff special, Mantis (Pom Klementieff) and Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista) set out to make Christmas special for Peter Quill (aka Star-Lord, played by Chris Pratt) and give him the perfect gift do – by kidnapping him and literally giving him bacon as a gift (with the help of a $40 Hollywood star card).

But Bacon’s interstellar journey into the sentinel’s wild winter wonderland was strange.

Guardians fans are aware of Quill’s fixation on the “legend” of the “great hero” Bacon, a delusion oddly reinforced by the actor’s role in 1984’s “Footloose.” But his 2014 name check in Guardians of the Galaxy caught Bacon off guard, so to speak.

“I was really shocked. I went into the movie not knowing it was going to happen,” Bacon recalled to The Post of venturing into a movie theater where he was showing. “And if you could imagine sitting in a dark room with strangers – I was all alone – and suddenly they’re talking about me. I’ve had pretty weird experiences in my life just based on what I do for a living. But that was pretty weird.”

Ultimately, however, the proud Philadelphia native said he was “thrilled” by its “hilarious” inclusion – which made it even easier to sign up for filmmaker James Gunn’s new, celebratory frolic.

“He has kind of a left-leaning perspective on the world, which I found fascinating and interesting,” Bacon said of Gunn, with whom he worked on the 2010 action film Super. “So if he puts out his hand and says, ‘I want to do this Christmas special and you’re in,’ it’s just an instant ‘yes.’ I don’t need to read it. I’ll be there.”

But this is definitely Not “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “It’s a Wonderful Life,” or whatever your grandma’s favorite, touching holiday classic might be.

For fans, the fast-paced 44-minute show features all of your favorite Guardians, including Quill, Drax, Mantis, Nebula (Karen Gillan), Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), Kraglin (Sean Gunn). ) and Yondu Udonta (Michael Rooker).

And it includes subversive music, too, including a hilarious – and violent – Christmas carol titled “I Don’t Know What Christmas Is (But Christmastime Is Here)” that completely misunderstands the meaning of the holiday and refers to Santa as “a”. furry freak.” It includes lyrics like, “Mrs. Claus, she’s working the pole / Planning her husband’s downfall / Soon all the elves will rise up and poke Santa’s eyes out.” (The 12-song soundtrack was released on November 23 and includes an alt-country tune -Band The Old 97’s and vocals by Bacon, who has performed with his sibling Michael in the group The Bacon Brothers since 1994.)

Interestingly, Bacon took to Facebook in December 2020 to declare himself “a little bit of Scrooge when it comes to Christmas music”. While he grudgingly welcomed Elvis Presley’s “Blue Christmas,” Otis Redding’s “Merry Christmas Baby,” and John Coltrane’s “Greensleeves,” he otherwise laments the annual cacophony of carols.

“I think maybe it’s less the songs and more the fact that they’re inescapable this season that every time you walk into a store or into an elevator or turn on the radio you know what I mean? You just can’t get away from it,” he told the Post. “But I think one of the things that’s fun about the film is James and his sense of humor – and also his taste in music is that he found a whole bunch of very cool Christmas carols to put in the film. “

The Apollo 13 star is also wishy-washy when asked about her all-time favorite Christmas special before revealing his “love” for the original animated version of Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas. It seems to grab your nostalgic heart.

“Part of the reason you like something like this is because it takes you back to when you first saw it, you know what I mean?” said a reminiscent Bacon. “So it’s not so much about the content, about the actual thing. It’s just that feeling of going back and experiencing what you experienced as a kid.”

Whether the Guardians special will become a valuable fixture remains to be seen – although Bacon may already be primed for that extra notoriety, in part due to the ubiquitous Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game. It claims that the “Friday the 13th” and “A Few Good Men” actor is at the center of the entertainment universe, and that any actor can be linked to Bacon – whose IMDb profile lists more than 100 roles – in just half a dozen steps .

Bacon initially saw the game as a career dig, telling the Post in 2013 that he “thought it would just go away.” But he’s since learned to embrace the cultural quirk, even using it as a catapult for a non-profit organization.

“It honestly took me a while to see the value of it, but now I fully embrace it. It’s my life,” he recently told The Post. “I don’t think you become an actor because you want to hide. You become an actor because you want to do something that people will see and recognize. And sometimes that recognition comes in one way and sometimes another.

“I’m just grateful that I can continue working today, that I’m still able to do things that people still want to see. I pinch myself all the time.”