Ron Howard Made a 'WeeWee' in Front of Kevin Bacon While Making "Apollo 13", Plus More BehindtheScenes Secrets Liz McNeil, Eric AnderssonSeptember 19, 2025 at 5:07 AM 0 Jesse Grant/Getty; Ron Batzdorff/Universal Ron Howard in 2025 (left); Ron Howard and Kevin Bacon on the set of Apollo 13 Ron Howard...
- - Ron Howard Made a 'Wee-Wee' in Front of Kevin Bacon While Making "Apollo 13", Plus More Behind-the-Scenes Secrets
Liz McNeil, Eric AnderssonSeptember 19, 2025 at 5:07 AM
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Jesse Grant/Getty; Ron Batzdorff/Universal
Ron Howard in 2025 (left); Ron Howard and Kevin Bacon on the set of Apollo 13 -
Ron Howard is sharing memorable moments from the making of Apollo 13 to celebrate its 30th anniversary
He said on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert that at one point he passed out and peed himself in front of Kevin Bacon
The filmmaker's Oscar-winning drama, which tells the harrowing story of NASA's aborted 1970 lunar mission, will be shown in IMAX theaters around the country beginning Friday, Sept. 19
Legendary filmmaker Ron Howard is sharing some of the more surprising moments from the making of Apollo 13.
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the film, which is getting a theatrical re-release in IMAX beginning Friday, Sept. 19, Howard spoke to PEOPLE and other outlets about his experience directing the Academy Award-winning film, which tells the true story of NASA's aborted mission to the Moon in 1970.
Astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise (played by Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon and Bill Paxton, respectively) were forced to chart a return home following an explosion as the crew on the ground at Mission Control coordinated to get them back on Earth safely.
Ed Harris, Gary Sinise and Kathleen Quinlan also starred in the film, which was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won two.
Eric Robert/Sygma/Sygma via Getty
Tom Hanks in 'Apollo 13.
Read on for some of Howard's behind-the-scenes secrets about the movie.
He accidentally peed himself in front of Kevin Bacon
Howard and cast members were required to go through a rigorous Air Force physical in order to see if they were fit to film in zero gravity in a Boeing KC-135 which was nicknamed the "Vomit Comet," Howard said on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert during a Tuesday, Sept. 17 appearance.
"I'm in there getting my physical with Kevin Bacon. It's everything — it's the treadmill, urine, blood works, heart monitor the whole thing," recalled Howard, who has a condition called vagovasal syncope. "I'm a little more prone to shock and I can get lightheaded. And at times, I can even faint."
"In this particular case, we're going along doing the physical and they're doing the blood test and I start to get woozy. In this case, the vasovagal syncope led to — I've never told this story by the way, for this reason," he continued.
"It led to Ron blacks out and Ron makes wee wee because I hadn't done the urine test yet," Howard confessed.
"I come to and I wake up and Kevin Bacon is looking at me. He's looking down, he's looking up. I'm one degree from Kevin Bacon and I just take a beat and I just go, 'Ten extra closeups in this movie, buddy, if you don't say a word.' He said, 'I'm with ya, boss.' "
Astronaut Jim Lovell wanted Kevin Costner to play him
Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty
Kevin Costner in 1990.
The astronaut portrayed by Hanks in the film wanted a different Oscar-winnert to step into his boots. "Jim Lovell really wanted Kevin Costner to play him because Costner looked a little like him, and Costner was just absolutely on fire," Howard revealed during an Apollo 13 screening at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, N.Y., over the summer. "Dances with Wolves was the biggest thing and Costner wasn't interested, wasn't available. It was sort of a non-starter."
Howard didn't initially want to cast his mother to play Jim Lovell's mom
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Ron Howard (left) and mother Jean Speegle Howard
Howard's mother, late actress Jean Howard, played astronaut Lovell's mom in the movie and delivers the memorable line, "If they could get a washing machine to fly, my Jimmy could land it."
The filmmaker's father suggested that Jean would be right for the part, but Howard wasn't so sure. "I said, 'Mom, you don't really look old enough for Mrs. Lovell.' " She told him, "Oh, well, you can add some wrinkles and we'll get the right glasses and I'll mat my hair down."
Even after she read for the part, Howard wasn't sure. " 'I don't know, mom, the age thing is bothering me,'" he remembers telling her, "She literally turned away and took her false teeth out and said, 'Will this help?' I said, 'Okay, mom, you got it.' "
He wondered if telling a true story would 'limit' his creativity
Celeste Sloman
Ron Howard on the cover of PEOPLE.
Apollo 13 was Howard's first film that's based on real events. "I got to meet so many of the men who went to the moon, made that possible. And I really did begin to understand the power of a true story," he recently told PEOPLE.
"I had fears about that, that it would somehow limit my creativity. And I found that for me, a history lover like Tom Hanks, who totally believed in the facts and was like just tirelessly digging up information and leading this charge that, hey, the truth is where the excitement is in this story."
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Apollo 13 returns to IMAX theaters for one week beginning Friday, Sept. 19.
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