John Travolta leaned into his own acting experiences for his directorial debut.
The 72-year-old actor worked behind the camera for the first time in his career on Propeller One-Way Night Coach, the film adaptation of his semi-autobiographical coming-of-age book that he wrote in the 90s, and Travolta has now opened up about his experience of directing the movie.
The award-winning star – who has also released multiple albums in his career – told Entertainment Weekly: “I have worked with the best directors in the world, and took the commonalities of what they did, how they behave, what their choices were, and I registered that in the back of my mind, always.
“And then I also looked at the mistakes other directors made, where you go, Hm, that’s just not what the best do. They don’t have a vision. They’re not telling the story. They’re excessive. They’re obsessing over extensive amounts of takes, and they’re wasting time.”
Travolta feels he’s learned a huge amount from his decades-long career in Hollywood.
The movie star – who has previously appeared in films such as Carrie, Saturday Night Fever, and Pulp Fiction – said: “It’s over 50 years I’ve been doing film, so if I hadn’t learned something, I wouldn’t have been paying attention. So I felt like the culmination of all these great directors gave me the opportunity to not make the mistakes that you could make if you were directing for the first time.”
Travolta approached directing Propeller One-Way Night Coach in his own distinctive way.
The actor-turned-director shared: “I could just feel how well it was working.
“I had it all edited in my mind. We did very few takes. The actors were so good, and they were so effective, that my saying on the set was, ‘It doesn’t get better than that. Let’s move on.’
“My co-producers were saying, ‘He’s not doing enough coverage’. I said, ‘Trust me, this is all I need.'”
Travolta is open to the idea of directing another project in the future. However, the Grease star will only commit to a project that he’s truly passionate about.
Travolta recalled what Adam Shankman once said about Hairspray, explaining that “it encompassed everything he ever wanted to do on film … and I feel similarly about this little book and this movie; this is my heart. This is my soul wanting to express something. So my answer to would I do it again or what it would be, it would have to affect me that way.”
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