Miami Herald ( Sunday, June 13, 1999)
NO FALSE NOTES: MORE CAREFUL TRAVOLTA NOT JUST STAYING ALIVE
RENE RODRIGUEZ
Herald Movie CriticNEW YORK -- Though it's not due out until fall, posters for the Broadway musical version of Saturday Night Fever have already begun to sprout up around Manhattan. John Travolta hasn't seen any of the ads yet, but you wonder if the impending return of Tony Manero -- the role that made Vinnie Barbarino into a superstar -- inspires any sort of nostalgia.
``No,'' he says quickly.
Not even a tiny little twinge?
``No,'' he affirms. ``I wish it did, but it doesn't. It must be like Liza Minnelli caring that they're going to do Cabaret on Broadway.'' Minnelli, of course, moved on. And so has Travolta. His famously blue eyes still twinkle with youthful mischief, but there are lines around them now. His body, once dancer-lean and wiry, is thicker and heavier now, unlikely to adorn any bedroom walls. His hair, cropped in a tight Caesar cut, is flecked with gray, to match his salt-and-pepper goatee.
Though he can still pass for a thirtysomething onscreen, in person Travolta looks all of his 45 years. But unlike other actors who become famous at an early age, he seems perfectly comfortable in his middle-aged skin. Travolta's laid-back aura of supreme self-confidence, the one that leapt off the Saturday Night Fever screen, is intact -- if anything, it shines stronger than ever.
Five years after the spectacular rebirth of his career in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, Travolta has regained his perch on the pop culture mantel - with a difference. No longer is he just an icon of cool, though he certainly remains that. Today, Travolta is an actor -- a serious, respected and continually surprising one.
In The General's Daughter, which opens Friday, he plays an officer of the Army's Criminal Investigation Division, assigned to solve the murder of the daughter of a decorated general. The movie is familiar genre stuff -- a thriller about the abuse of power -- but Travolta's edgy, commanding performance gives it added texture and grit. Like Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman, he has become an actor whose presence in a film immediately makes it worth seeing.
For that, Travolta is now one of Hollywood's highest-paid talents, commanding $20 million or more per role. Gone are the days of Two of a Kind and Staying Alive and Perfect, when Travolta took work merely for a paycheck -- and watched his career disintegrate. Today, he is careful. Like most of the films he's made in the last five years -- Face/Off, Primary Colors, A Civil Action, Broken Arrow, Michael, Get Shorty -- The General's Daughter is big, mainstream entertainment that still leaves Travolta room to stretch himself, to craft a real performance.
In other words, it's a movie he does not have to apologize for.
``That's been very much part of the design,'' Travolta says, dressed in a sharp navy blue Armani suit as he leans back on a couch in a Manhattan hotel suite. ``Before Quentin offered me Pulp Fiction, he stated his disappointment in me for not parlaying what he thought was potentially the best career in the history of film.
``He literally yelled at me for blowing it, and told me to get back on track, rekindle what I had, and go forward with what I was going to do. So that's all I've done. When Pulp Fiction parlayed itself into all these opportunities, I made the decision that I was going to care about my career and my choices, really analyze them, and do what I felt I was capable of. Kind of fulfill a prophecy, if you will.'' That prophecy, up until now, has not included an Academy Award, something Travolta has been nominated for twice (Saturday Night Fever and Pulp Fiction).
``I'd be lying to you if I said it wasn't disappointing,'' he says. ``But it's become less important to me, because I've been promised it so many times. The two times I was nominated, everyone thought I was going to win, and I didn't. Every time I thought I was going to be nominated, I wasn't. A lot of people told me they were surprised [I wasn't nominated] for A Civil Action. But you know what? When people say they're surprised, it's almost as pleasing to me, because it means that in their own minds, I should have gotten it. There's a big satisfaction in that.''
Sources of joy
Besides, Travolta has plenty of other things to keep him happy. Aside from his work, there's his marriage to actress Kelly Preston and their 7-year-old son, Jett. There is his passion for airplanes (he owns several, including a 707). In 1997, he wrote a children's fable, Propeller One-Way Night Coach.
And there is his love of food. Unlike most movie sex symbols, Travolta is not one to skip dessert. The shock of seeing a pudgy Travolta shirtless in Pulp Fiction has, by now, worn off. But even if it hadn't, he says he still wouldn't be on the market for a Soloflex. ``At the time of Pulp Fiction, I was on the heavier side and I asked Quentin if he wanted me to lose weight, because I'm very good at doing it. He said, `No, I think it's kind of interesting if you didn't.' So I didn't. With Get Shorty, I wanted to lose a few, just to look good in those suits, so I did. In Broken Arrow, I was playing a military pilot, so I lost about 15 pounds, my sides and my tummy. For Michael, I gained it all back. I thought it would be hilarious to play the angel heavy, to come out with a gut, in those underwear and those wings. It was the most anti-star thing I could have possibly done, and I loved every second of it.
``So it varies, but it's certainly not a Harrison Ford or Tom Cruise kind of thing. I don't think it's ever been about my body. I thought it was when I did Staying Alive. I thought I had to keep a good body up. But it's never been about that. I don't think that's why people tune into me. If it were only about that, I'd have blown it several times already.''
Unshakable confidence
So what is Travolta's appeal? At first, he shrugs and says he doesn't know. But when pressed, he offers a theory. ``I guess it's something Pauline Kael wrote about me 20 years ago. I felt it was the truth about me then, and it still is now. She said, `He's an actor who goes so far into his roles that he's incapable of a false note. More importantly, he's an actor who loves to act.' I think people really sense that I get a kick out of it, and that I really have this great certainty about entertaining them.''
Travolta was so sure he was destined to become an actor, he dropped out of high school at age 16 and joined a summer stock theater company in New Jersey. Soon, he was appearing in off-Broadway productions, and in 1974 was cast in the original Broadway production of Grease.
``That confidence came from being 5 years old and my parents sitting there for hours, watching me lip-sync to records and make up plays,'' he says, laughing. ``Whatever I did, I was completely indulged. I left home with the utmost confidence, and if anyone denied that, I was suffering fools. It was like, `I don't have a clue what they're talking about. I don't know why they would ever think that wasn't an inspired performance.' ''
That same confidence has sometimes been interpreted as rampant ego -- particularly in the past few years, when Travolta developed a reputation for being a temperamental star who even demanded control over the caterers hired for the movies he'd be working on. ``The saddest part of the whole story is that if I were cold as ice, I'd have those same amenities, except I wouldn't be written about,'' he says. ``Every movie star has them. They get to choose their driver, their assistant, their makeup and hair people. But when you become hot again, those become luxuries. People start saying `Oh, he's so hot, he gets to choose!'
``Well, I have an indifference to those comments, because they don't mean anything. At the end of the day, all that matters is that you do a good job, that your movie is good and that people want to see it.''
Next battle
Next up for Travolta is an $80 million science-fiction epic, Battlefield Earth, to be directed by Roger Christian, who shot second unit photography on The Phantom Menace. It's a project the actor has been nursing along for 15 years, and he's visibly excited about it. ``I've had more e-mail on this movie than any other movie I've ever done. And who is it from mostly? People who love Star Wars, Stranger in a Strange Land, Dune. Those are the people who are excited about this movie, because in their view, it's probably the best science-fiction book ever written.''
Except that Battlefield Earth was written by L. Ron Hubbard, who also founded the controversial Church of Scientology, which counts Travolta among its members. Though the 1,000-page novel is nothing more than pure, pulpy sci-fi adventure, there are already grumblings that part of Travolta's interest in the project is that it's an indirect way of raising scientology's profile.
``Well, they are kind of synonymous,'' he says. ``L. Ron Hubbard is very famous for scientology and Dianetics. On the other hand, he's equally as famous in the science-fiction world. So for people to think that . . . look, I don't want everybody to try scientology. I don't really care if somebody thinks that. I'm not worried about it. You can't be. The truth of why I'm doing it is because it's a great piece of science fiction. I'm going to be the wickedest nine-foot alien you've ever seen in your life.''