Kevin Bacon was "horrified" by the 'Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon' game because he thought it was "a joke at his expense".

The 65-year-old actor is the subject of a viral trivia game based on the idea that his prolific big screen career - which covers all kinds of genres - means he can be linked to any Hollywood actor in just a few steps.

However, Kevin told the 'On With Mario Lopez' podcast: "I always think to myself, it's only because I've been in a whole lot of movies that a whole lot of people have bene in, a lot of very big casts!

"I was horrified! Because I thought it was really a joke at my expense. I just thought, 'Oh come on, they're just making fun of me, let's face it!' "

After making his big screen feature film debut in 'National Lampoon's Animal House' back in 1978, his breakthrough role came in 1984's 'Footloose'.

He has gone onto appear in the likes of 'A Few Good Men', 'Friday the 13th', 'Crazy, Stupid, Love' and 'Patriots Day'.

Kevin revealed it was in the mid-1990s when he first became aware of the game.

He recalled: "I heard about it, people would come up to me and say, 'My cousin invented a game about you,' or, 'I'm so hungover, I was playing your game last night'. I had no idea what they were talking about, I was like, 'I think you've got the wrong guy.'

"It was really started by these college kids at a college in Pennsylvania called Albright. One of my movies was on and they just came up with this concept."

The veteran actor was convinced the game would "go away" after a while, but it's still prevalent to the point he's borrowed from it for the name of his new podcast 'Six Degrees With Kevin Bacon'.

He added: "It's hard to imagine, but we didn't have the same - if something went viral, we didn't really use that word. Viral was a virus, it wasn't an idea! But it spread and spread and spread, and I honestly thought it was gonna go away, and it just didn't go away!"