John Travolta said he loved making “Ladder 49” and gushed that it turned out “so much even better than what we thought” — but wouldn’t you rather hear about his frustrations in trying make another musical?
Of course you would.
Musicals are the biggest puzzlement life because clearly some of my biggest successes have been musicals, and it’s the least done commodity in Hollywood,” the 50-year-old actor said, looking sleek in a black black on black outfit. “I guess if I really want to do that, I’d have to go out of my way create one because people are afraid of them to some degree.”
Then again, he was offered the role of lawyer Billy Flynn in “Chicago” and turned down, just as he had the lead roles in “An Officer and a Gentleman” and “American Gigolo.” Richard Gere should be sending pretty hefty Christmas baskets by now.
“I was offered ‘Chicago,’ but at that moment I didn’t know what that meant, because the stage show wasn’t that interesting me,” Travolta said. “But the movie was pretty good. It elevated the stage show.”
So do you regret that decision?
“I don’t know because I think I would have been good in that role, but I still think that it’s such a specific ability of mine that it’s still more fun to think of — like Hugh Jackman in `Boy from Oz’ is more of the kind of performance that I’d be looking for in a musical. I don’t mean doing that show. I’m just saying that kind of dynamic where I get to go all out, almost in a role that the women had in `Chicago.'”
In other words you wanted to be Roxie.
“Well, `Funny Girl’ is a better part than the Omar Sharif part. I’m no dummy,” he said, laughing.
So if you’re going to do a musical, you want it to be a John Travolta musical.
“Yeah, because it’s too much of a legacy in people’s minds,” he said. “If they were more readily done, I think [Billy Flynn] would’ve been a part that would’ve been great to do. But because they’re never done, I would rather do it right if I were going to do it again.”
Wasn’t there talk about you doing “Guys and Dolls” or “Pal Joey”?
“And they’re still talking, except they cannot free the rights up of those movies. Those would be great for me. But for some reason they have these eternal tie-ups. The wonderful producers that produced `Chicago’ have been full time trying to free up the rights.”
In “Guys and Dolls” would you want the Brando or Sinatra part?
“I don’t know. I’m probably more right for the Brando part, but I like the musical numbers that Sinatra had, so I probably would do a twist on it and say, `OK, I get that number.’ I did it in `Grease.’ I stole a couple of numbers from the other characters. I said I wanted the `Greased Lightning’ number, and I got it even though it wasn’t what the play was.”
Speaking of “Grease,” every six months or so someone kicks around the idea of doing another “Grease” sequel.
“No, it should just be left alone for lots of reasons.”
You and Olivia Newton-John would be the parents or something awful like that.
“I know, and they just don’t get it. I said, `Look, if you think that’s a good idea, you never understood why the first one was a success.’ The first one was a success because the ’50s was a unique time in American history, and it had a new face to youth that was hilariously incongruous to the rest of the world at that time. It was refreshing.
“The music was the birth of rock. It had so many time-significant aspects that even though the characters were high school and everybody could identify with it, it had this very entertaining face to it and humor. Nobody that tries to do these sequels understands that it was a point in history that had so much to do with the time. It’s like `Happy Days’ today would not work.”
If you did it in real time, it would be set in the ’80s now, right? And it would have Flock of Seagulls kind of musical numbers while you’d be the parents with bad hair.
“The only way you could even dream of putting it together is if you put it back in the ’50s where all that stuff was what people liked to watch, the leather jackets and the tight skirts and the cigarettes and the cars and the funny music.”
They could just do a remake with Jessica Simpson.
“Yeesh.”
