Travolta's Rollercoaster Ride
Always smooth and always suave, John Travolta is back -- and bad. Savoring his role as a cold-blooded mob boss, Travolta takes on a comic book hero in the upcoming action-thriller, "The Punisher." "You get a lot of lateral movement when you play a psychotic guy," Travolta told us.
But even though he likes to play bad, Travolta is looking and feeling good these days, fresh off hitting the big 5-0. And the half-century birthday bash ended up a double celebration -- Travolta’s surprise party came just one week after he helped good friend Oprah Winfrey toast her own 5th decade.
So what does Travolta have planned for the next 50 years? "I don’t know," said John. "Oprah and I have to put our heads together and figure out what we’re going to do. One thing is probably save Africa, at this point."
Travolta took the world by storm with "Saturday Night Fever," "Grease" and "Urban Cowboy" during his 20s. So what were the 1970s like for the superstar? "I felt very lonely, actually, at the time, because there really was no one else doing the same kind of work I was doing," Travolta revealed. "I decided that I couldn't live in an ivory tower so I reached out and started rubbing elbows with everyone and just decided to live my life as normally as I could. That brought me down to earth."
Moving into the 1980s, Travolta shared with us that, "I was busy doing stuff then. I had Scientology, jet planes, I was traveling the world. I had cooled off a bit, but I didn’t notice -- others did."
And that's where renegade writer/director Quentin Tarantino stepped in, taking a bold leap by casting Travolta in the classic, "Pulp Fiction." "I had my fifth comeback when Quentin Tarantino picked me up after everyone seemed to loose interest in me," Travolta remembered. "He helped me a lot. He brought me back to the top."
And Travolta hopes to recreate some of that magic again, teaming up with his "Pulp Fiction" costar Uma Thurman to shoot "Be Cool," the sequel to "Get Shorty."
In the meantime, catch John being mean, when "The Punisher" hits theaters April 16th.
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