Long before the McConaissance, there was the Travoltaissance. We just weren’t as big on combining proper nouns back then.
Twenty years ago, John Travolta was just another victim of the Hollywood machine a hip-shaking, high note-hitting has-been, relegated to playing second banana to a couple of dogs in “Look Who’s Talking Now.” And then, out of nowhere, some guy named Quentin Tarantino came along with the perfect role: Vincent Vega in “Pulp Fiction.” Legend has it, Travolta got the part over Daniel Day-Lewis. The hit placed jumper cables on Travolta’s career and suddenly he was up and running, good as new, and getting all kinds of great parts.
Since then, there have been ups and downs. More recently, downs. But what better time to revisit Travolta’s post-“Pulp” trajectory than at the dawn of Michael Keaton’s resurrection?
Keaton is starring in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s “Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance,” an indie movie so buzzed about that it managed to rake in $400,000 in just four theaters last weekend. It gets a wide release Friday; if you’re going, you may want to buy tickets ahead of time. The Oscar chatter has been deafening, but it’s also well-deserved.
The Keatonaissance will likely trigger a new landslide of scripts in the star’s direction, plus a brighter spotlight on his life, so he may want to look to Travolta’s career for some dos and don’ts of managing his resurgence.
1. Don’t be afraid to take another similar role. Travolta played it safe by playing another gangster type mobbed-up loan shark Chili Palmer in “Get Shorty.” And guess what? He won a Golden Globe, plus fawning reviews about “putting on a dazzling demonstration of what being a movie star is all about.”
2. But don’t star in a sequel to that movie. (Remember “Be Cool”? OK, now go back to forgetting about it.) In fact, don’t star in any sequels.
3. Do pick up the phone if Mike Nichols calls. Travolta’s Clintonesque role in Nichols’s “Primary Colors” may have been his last great role. (Conversely, if anyone calls from the creative team of “Wild Hogs,” maybe let it go to voicemail.)
4. Don’t use your new clout to proselytize. Probably not much of an issue for Keaton, who described himself to Grantland last year as a mostly non-active Catholic who occasionally meditates. But it was a fatal temptation for Travolta, a loyal long-time Scientologist who took it upon himself to produce and star in “Battlefield Earth,” based on Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s sci-fi novels. The result was a box-office flop and critical bomb widely deemed one of the worst of the aughts. (“A million monkeys with a million crayons would be hard-pressed in a million years to create anything as cretinous,” Rita Kempley wrote in the Washington Post. “… so breathtakingly awful in concept and execution, it wouldn’t tax the smarts of a troglodyte.” Of Travolta’s performance: “well, hammy William Shatner’s hairpiece is more convincing.”)
5. Do star in a Nicolas Cage movie. Sure, that’s risky business these days, but Travolta made it work in their crowd-pleasing “Face/Off.” And you’d be doing him a favor.
6. Don’t grant too many interviews. It preserves your mystique. And, obviously, do your best to stay out of the tabloids.
7. Do practice your lines before introducing famous Broadway stars at awards shows but if you can’t read the cue cards, just plow ahead and deliver your garbled wild guess with a confident, twinkly warmth. (And be sure to come back quickly with a humble and witty apology.)
