He lost his role due to alcohol problems.

Actor Christopher Atkins has revealed that he lost the lead role in the 1984 cult film "Footloose" due to his alcohol problems, which ultimately went to Kevin Bacon.

The former teen star said that the film's producers had already decided to cast him in the lead role, but wanted to meet him before final confirmation. However, due to the lifestyle he was leading at the time, he didn't make a good impression.

"I was in complete chaos at the time. I was going out and partying too much, and then they called me. I said, 'I can't come now. I've been drinking and partying.' But they said, 'No, they need to see you.' I went and completely blew that meeting. Actually, it wasn't even an audition, the role was already mine, but I was in such a bad state that in the end they said, 'We're going to skip this guy,'" the actor said.

He added that he has been sober for almost 40 years now.

Atkins, who was just 18 when he landed his first big role in the 1980 film "The Blue Lagoon," said he never planned on an acting career.

"I've never acted before. I didn't even want to be an actor, my dream was to play baseball," he said.

He explained that he started modeling for the Ford Agency in New York, after which he went to audition for "The Blue Lagoon."

"They kept calling me for new rounds of auditions. Then they didn't call me for a while, and then they called me again and told me to bring a blonde curly wig to the final test," he recalled.

He eventually landed the role alongside then-teenage star Brooke Shields, even though, he says, he knew almost nothing about filmmaking.

"I didn't even know what a movie camera looked like, I didn't know what it meant to stop at a frame mark, I didn't know anything. And then I got on a plane and flew to Fiji," he said.

The film, he says, completely changed his life.

"We were young and suddenly you're everywhere. Magazines want you on the covers because you sell well. You give interview after interview and keep answering the same questions. But your life completely changes because you go from being anonymous to suddenly being a face on the covers of all the magazines," Atkins concluded.