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"Battlefiled Earth" & more!
April 29, 2000 (Montreal, Canada)
- I consider myself very lucky to have been able to take part in a round-table interview
session with John Travolta, as he whisked through our town on his way to promoting his new
sci-fi adventure called "Battlefield Earth". Overall, I was extremely impressed
with the man, who appeared to be one of the most down-to-earth people that I'd ever met.
Very gracious, attentive and genuinely sincere, John Travolta proved to me today that
being a giant in the entertainment biz, does not mean you have to be an A-hole. Of course,
I couldn't help but be nervous during most of our 30-minute encounter, but John was very
good at making everyone around him feel at ease (he responds by looking directly into your
eyes-- sign of a good man!), and even let my sorry fan-boy ass take a picture with him.
But enough about me and my teenage fantasies...let's move on to the interview, which
contains minor plot spoilers about "Battlefield Earth".
REPORTER:
One of the things that tickled my fancy about this movie was that your character was a
typical company guy. This guy thought that he was on the fast track, he paid his dues, how
come he’s not getting the promotion that’s due to him, and he reacted in a typical
way.
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
Yeah, that’s true. That’s what I loved about the book and what I love about the movie,
is that it’s very identifiable. Everything in it, even though they’re aliens and
humans, they’ve got these very realistic and identifiable behavior patterns. And I think
that you’re spot-on with that analogy there. Also, he’s summoned to stay on a planet
he hates, for basically the rest of his life, and that motivates all sorts of evil,
further evil thinkings, like he wasn’t evil enough already. And that’s what people do
you know...you rub them the wrong way and suddenly they find a way of getting you.
REPORTER:
Do you believe in aliens?
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
Oh gosh, well, I have to believe there’s some other life force out there. I don’t know
in what form. But we can’t have all these galaxies and universes without something going
on. I just don’t know what the deal is. Not that I’m even excited about the
possibility, I don’t even know if I want to encounter <laughs> what possibly could
be out there, but I’d be na?ve to think that there wasn’t some life form.
REPORTER:
Do you think that in the movie, the Psychlos underestimate the "man-animals", as
they call them?
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
I think they completely underestimate them. I think that’s one of the best parts of the
drama. They even thought the human beings chauffeured the dogs, cause the dog was the
senior race, and that their favorite food was rat! I mean that is the wildest
underestimation of the human species that there could be. And the most fun
underestimation.
REPORTER:
I never figured you to be a fan of sci-fi. Have you always been a sci-fi fan?
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
No, it was actually this book that…I mean, as a kid, I loved "The Time
Machine", "Leagues under the Sea", and I remember all the ones that
everybody else liked, but I didn’t really kick into it until I read this, because it was
like a fine wine of the genre. It seemed to be much different than everything that I had
witnessed and read hither to that point.
REPORTER:
You’ve played your fair share of villains and heroes? Which one would you rather play?
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
There’s definitely a bigger kick you get out of playing a villain, but the operative
thing is to play anything well written. That’s really the ideal thing. Good or bad, is
it well written, is the character developed, is the dialogue great and easy to
say…things like this.
REPORTER:
Have you been thinking about making this movie since you first read the book in 1982?
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
Yeah, more or less because when I first got familiar with the book, I wanted to play
Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, the part Barry Pepper plays. And then as I cooled off in my career,
and I didn’t have the clout anymore, I had to re-invent myself, and gain the clout
again, but in doing so I became a popular villain. And I thought, well you know I’m too
old to play the other guy, but why not segue into the villain, and let someone like Barry
Pepper play the hero.
REPORTER:
Now that you’ve re-instated your role as one of the world’s biggest superstars, are
you afraid that you might be missing out on some of the smaller roles that are also well
written?
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
Fortunately, because I did movies like "She's So Lovely" or "White Man's
Burden", I’m not left out of those potential offers. Recently I was offered a small
movie like that with Billy Bob Thornton, and I didn’t take it, but at least they’re
still offering those possibilities, because I think once in a while, it’s fun to do a
small art film. Because it’s something a little different that may not get done
otherwise.
REPORTER:
But you do prefer making the "larger" films…?
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
As long as it’s good, I prefer what’s good! That’s my preference. Not really
"large" versus "small" or whatever. Quality is what I prefer.
REPORTER:
John, would you like to direct a movie one day?
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
I will direct one day, but I have a feeling that it will be very limited. I wrote a little
book called "Propeller One-Way Night Coach", which is a fable, I called it, for
all ages. I would direct that, because I think only I have the take on that, that is the
right one. Because it’s so subjective, so personal to me, and I’d only want to see it
in a certain way.
REPORTER:
John, the new "Summer Movie Preview" of Entertainment Weekly is out, and in a
little synopsis about your movie, one of the lines that we got a kick out of reading was
"John had to put up with the unbearable heat last summer in Montreal".
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
Unbearable heat in Montreal!? <laughs> How’s that happen?
REPORTER:
Can you for a couple of minutes talk to me about a guy who is very underrated as an actor.
Forrest Whitaker.
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
Oh yeah, sure! Forrest and I did a movie called "Phenomenon" together, about
four-five years ago. And of course we were playing a much different relationship, we were
best friends there, and here we’re blackmailing, co-workers and intermittent
adversaries. He’s a really fine actor, who can basically do anything. Just like Barry
Pepper can. And I felt the most fortunate to get these two in the movie, and Kim Coates as
well. I mean we had an A+ quality cast, and clearly A+ crew and special effects.
REPORTER:
Is there a chance that you may team up again with a Miss Kelly Preston on another film?
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
Who happens to be my wife, yes! <laughs> We had planned to do a movie right before
"Battlefield Earth" and then we postponed that…
REPORTER:
Was that the "Shipping News"?
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
No, "Shipping News", we cancelled that one because they didn’t want to do it,
not big enough. "Standing Room Only" was the one that we were gonna do. We put
that on hold and we’re looking for another one to do. But in the meantime, we had fun
doing this scene together.
REPORTER:
It was a nice scene.
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
Wasn’t it fun?
REPORTER:
What about little Jett, if you don’t mind me asking, do you think he might one day get
into the movies?
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
I hope he does. Because I think this is a great profession, any of the arts, or sports, I
think anything that communicates a creative instinct is a great thing for a child, and I
would support all of that.
REPORTER:
Would you let him be an airline pilot?
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
Yup! I’d let him pretty much do whatever he was excited about doing.
REPORTER:
Is there a career after the movie industry that you’re looking at, or is it that one day
you’ll say "That’s it, that’s all, I’m done. Thank you very much"?
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
No, I think that I’ll probably do this till the day I die. And if I had a second kind of
career, even simultaneously, probably the airline industry…I’m very fond of aviation,
and in particular, the airline industry. Although it’s going in a direction that I
don’t always like because it’s not comfort oriented and I like the glamour days of
aviation, more than the way it is-- sardine cans, put ‘em in. It doesn’t appeal to me.
Making it fun and comfortable for passengers does. I think that travel is adventurous, and
I think that it should be fun. And I think that it’s lost its fun.
When I was a kid in the 60s, believe it or not, most of you are younger and don’t know
that, but it was a blast to fly! You dressed up, you got in your Sunday best, women wore
white gloves, you had room to stretch your legs out, you had a very nice meal, the
stewardess paid particular attention to you. It was an event. It’s so different today.
REPORTER:
Can we backtrack a little, and if you could describe the movie in general terms, and also,
your role more specifically?
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
Sure. "Battlefield Earth" is considered the saga of the year 3000. So it’s a
1000 years from now, and the planet is in the shape of, well, man is an endangered
species. And this alien group called the Psychlos have come down, earlier than this point,
and conquered the, what they call, "man-animals", in less than…was it 9
minutes or 7 minutes?
REPORTER:
Nine minutes.
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
Nine minutes. So you take up where there are very few human beings left. How do they get
their planet back? They don’t even know what happened to them, most of them. And the
ones that do know are enslaved to these alien groups. And you pick up where this one
single human being tries to tackle the big honcho of the Psychlos, chief of security Terl,
and I play that. And the decent human being is Barry Pepper. It’s quite a romp. It’s a
funny movie as dramatic as it sounds, it’s also quite funny. I mean one of the English
critics called Terl the "best comic villain in literary history". And I kind of
agree with that, and that’s kind of the approach I took on it. You’ll see a lot of
things that you’ll recognize, like people’s behavior, the criminal mind, people
blackmailing and leveraging each other. The decent mind. The fellow that likes to survive
for the group, and what’s best for each other matters most. You’ll recognize certain
familiar things. And less alien-like things. So that’s kind of it in a nutshell.
The Psychlos do have an intent to get as much valuable sources and resources from the
planet to take back to their planet for selfish and greedy reasons. Like gold, for
instance. So when my character is found that he will soon be summoned to the rest of his
life on this, what he thinks of as a "prison planet", he just goes psychotic,
not though that he wasn’t psychotic prior to that, and he decides that he’s gonna get
all the gold for himself, and go back and be a big deal and live the life of luxury on his
planet. And that’s where the conflict comes in and the use of one of the human beings,
which is Barry Pepper, to try to serve his further goals.
REPORTER:
What are you expecting out of this movie? Are you expecting it to be a summer popcorn kind
of fun movie or is there a hidden message that you’d like people to take away? I liked
it on the popcorn level, a lot.
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
Popcorn level is the level that I am selling this movie on! Like "Pulp fiction",
the movie, if you choose to read into it the way you want to, it’s your choice. But I
only intended it to be a very entertaining popcorn movie. And then if you like other
things about it, like in "Pulp Fiction", you know they loved interpreting
different things like "what does the light in the suitcase mean?"…
REPORTER:
What does it mean actually? Do you know?
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
I don’t know. Because it was left open for interpretation.
REPORTER:
What’s your take on foot massages?
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
<laughs> Interpretive foot massages! Actually, I think a foot massage can be for
anybody, and anyone who wants to do it, it doesn’t have to be sensuous or sexual, I
think they’re just healthy to get.
REPORTER:
John, forgive me but was this your first foray starring in a movie which you were also
producing?
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
Uh-huh.
REPORTER:
And that being said, did you find it difficult to focus, were you able to sort of zero in
on what you had to do or did they both interlap and some days you were running around like
you were crazy?
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
Both. You do need to take responsibility for every department as fully as you can, plus
you have to remember that you are starring in it, and performing, you have a performance
to live up to. You have a book to live up to. All these things are going on at once. And
believe it or not, you know that saying "give a busy person something to do, and
you’ll get it done"? I think that was kind of me. When I get really busy, not
unlike my wife, the same thing, you could give us a lot to do, we’ll get it all done.
One of my destinies probably was taking more responsibility than just being an actor,
although it’s kinda fun to just be an actor.
REPORTER:
You’re saying that this is essentially a "popcorn" movie, that we view as
entertainment. And I’m not trying to read more into it than we should, however the story
was written by the founder of Scientology, and because of that very fact, I am assuming
that perhaps some of the values that are dear to him, and his "disciples", are
perhaps included in this movie. Could you describe some of the values that are dear to
Scientologists that we might find in this movie?
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
Well, the first distinction you should make is that probably Hubbard is more famous for
science-fiction than philosophy. And I think that any of the values you’ll find in this
movie are just values that most good stories and decent people include in their scenarios.
Good versus evil and things like that. So I don’t think you’re gonna find anything
particularly unusual that would reflect necessarily on the philosophy or not, other than
the human condition.
REPORTER:
Could you expand on, you mentioned the sequel…is that confirmed? Is that still in talks?
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
Sequel will be done, and it will be done here. Probably next year. So we’re looking
forward to coming back, having a good time again.
REPORTER:
And there are rumors about GREASE 3 going around, I don’t know if you’ve heard…
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
Oh really. I’m wondering what that would be.
REPORTER:
Apparently, Britney Spears and N’Sync are rumored…
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
Well, that might be fun. That’s probably a good idea. It’d be better than "Grease
2" without Olivia and I. We wanted to do that, and then sillily, the company didn’t
want us to do it. And I’m thinking, well that doesn’t make sense.
REPORTER:
If there’s one actor or actress that you would have loved to star with but has passed
on, who would that be?
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
Barbara Stanwyck and Jimmie Cagney.
REPORTER:
And what ever happened to "Quiller Solitaire"?
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
That was scheduled to go and then another movie came up in its place because all the
elements didn’t quite fall into place, so I went with the one that went quicker. So that
may still happen but probably not for a while.
REPORTER:
John, could I ask you one favor? I’m a bit of a fan also, would you mind if I got a
picture of me--
JOHN TRAVOLTA:
Yes, of course! Yes.
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And with that we concluded a very cool interview with a very cool, genuinely sincere
Hollywood star. And whether or not you actually like his new film, I think it’s safe to
say that John Travolta is definitely one of the more grounded stars of our day. ‘Twas
truly a great day for yours truly as well. With the original "Grease" certified
as one of the top films to revisit the inside of my VCR on an annual basis, this meeting
with John Travolta was easily one of the greatest highlights of my stint at joblo.com.
Thanks a bunch, John. You da man. "Battlefield Earth" opens wide on May 12,
2000.