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“I had a dream I met Kevin Bacon last night,” said the star of this Friday’s Footloose re-do, Kenny Wormald. “Probably because we’ve been following him,” said co-star Julianne Hough, most famously known for her stint on Dancing with the Stars. “He was in Chicago when we were there. Now he is here and we are here.” “Here” is Boston’s Liberty Hotel where the two young stars, new to the film industry, are on one of the many stops of their whirlwind press tour to promote the film which has been stigmatized as a needless remake to a fan favorite. While it has been an uphill battle to make audiences believe that a movie about ending a ban against dancing in a small southern town is still relevant, under the guidance of unlikely director Craig Brewer (Hustle & Flow, Black Snake Moan), Footloose 2.0, is a surprisingly entertaining and meaningful film.

“I am so happy that this movie is coming out – not because we are attached, but for our generation,” said Hough on the film’s importance to be seen besides the eye-popping dance moves, “There are no teen movies that have such a message and really mean something. It’s also a little controversial.”

While he doesn’t have Bacon’s acting experience, Wormald does have a natural charm to his engaging performance and skilled dance moves (he is a professional dancer – winning countless titles, plus notably appearing in music videos opposite Madonna and Mariah Carey, as well as touring with Justin Timberlake), making him more than worthy of donning on the shoes of Ren McCormack (or would it be kicking off the shoes?).

With a noticeable Boston accent (Ren this time around is from Kenny’s native Beantown instead of Chicago) playing nicely off of Hough’s southern dialect, the two dancers turned ingénue-actors talked about: growing up as dancers, how to approach a remake, comparing dancing to acting, and what the film might have looked like if the Chace Crawford-led version got made instead.

You both are professional dancers from a very young age. In the movie, dancing obviously has a strong meaning to each of your characters. So what does dancing personally mean to you?

KW: It’s pretty much the only thing I ever known, being a dancer. I have been dancing since I was six and I fell in love with it right away and that’s why I stuck with it. It’s six days a week at the studio, growing up over here at [Brockton, Massachusetts and going to Sherry Gold Dance Studios]. Sometimes you find yourself missing football or baseball practice, but I just always went back to dance. It was this constant thing that I loved. It makes you feel good. You leave the studio at the end of the night and there is nothing in the world you can compare it to.

JH: Same with me. It’s the only constant thing I’ve ever had in my life, because I moved around constantly. I was competing, doing different things, and dancing was always the center of my world. To me I think it helped with my drive and my discipline and my work ethic and I owe it all to dance classes.

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