Kevin Bacon on subway: He isn't the only famous face to take public transportation

In a recent interview with People Magazine, actor Kevin Bacon revealed that he rides the subway in New York City.

“It's the fastest way to get around the city,” he said in an interview. “When I'm on the train, I play solitaire, Angry Birds, and backgammon on my phone.”

Bacon has a home in New York with his wife, “The Closer” actress Kyra Sedgwick.

The actor also said in the interview that he had a disguise made up so he wouldn’t be recognized by fans, but that he was surprised by how he felt when he was treated like everyone else. 

“Fame is very much a double-edged sword,” Bacon said, according to MSN News. “I had a prosthetic disguise made, because I wanted to see what it would be like not to be recognised. I didn't like it very much – no one was nice to me. People didn't bother me, but they also looked right through me.”

However, the actor, who is now starring on the Fox TV show “The Following” as a determined former FBI agent who is on the trail of a serial killer (“Rome” actor James Purefoy), isn’t the only famous face who takes public transportation. Actors including Katharine McPhee of “Smash,” which has a set in New York, and Katie Holmes, who recently starred in a Broadway play titled “Dead Accounts,” have been spotted on the New York subway. Others who have taken the subway include Hugh Jackman and singer Rick Springfield, who started singing his hit “Jesse’s Girl” while riding and got others to sing along. 

But McPhee told Self Magazine she stopped taking the subway after she had trouble the first time.

“On my first day of work, I said, ‘I'm going to be a real New Yorker, get there on my own and not spend $30 on a cab,’” the singer said. “But I went the wrong way on the subway, and when I asked for directions, the person in the booth was mean to me. So I ended up crying and in a cab anyway. Now the show sends a van for me.”

One of the most famous stars to board the train recently was rapper Jay-Z, who took the subway to Brooklyn when he performed at the newly opened Barclays Center. A video of him speaking with a 67-year-old woman on the train who didn’t know who he was quickly became popular online.

“My name is Jay,” he said to the woman, Ellen Grossman, asking her name.

Grossman asked him if he was famous.

“Yes,” the rapper replied, then added, “Not very famous. You don’t know me. But I’ll get there someday.”

When he gave his full name as Jay-Z, Grossman said she knew who he was.