- Title: From "Grease" to ganster: Travolta's back in Cannes
- Date: 14th May 2018
- Summary: CANNES, FRANCE (MAY 14, 2018) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTOR, JOHN TRAVOLTA, SAYING: "The challenges kept on knocking us down one after another. We had different directors, different casts, different scripts - one was too shoot-'em-up , one was too family - now we've finally got the right mix and we've found Kevin Connolly the director and he was obsessed growing up
- Embargoed: 28th May 2018 21:16
- Keywords: John Travolta Pulp Fiction Grease 40 years special screening Cannes Film Festival gangster movie Kelly Preston
- Location: CANNES, FRANCE AND VARIOUS FILM LOCATIONS
- City: CANNES, FRANCE AND VARIOUS FILM LOCATIONS
- Country: France
- Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment,Film
- Reuters ID: LVA0048FUDG0D
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: PROFANITY IN SHOT 11
Fans of high school musical "Grease" are in for a treat if they can make it to the French Riviera this week.
The movie will be screened on the beach on Wednesday (May 16) to celebrate its 40th anniversary. And fans might get a glimpse of its star, John Travolta, who is back in Cannes promoting his new film, "Gotti", about a New York gangster.
In 1978, Travolta, already a global sensation thanks to "Saturday Night Fever", came to the Cannes Film Festival to promote "Grease", a huge hit that also made him a music star with songs from the soundtrack dominating the charts.
"The mid-point was 'Pulp Fiction', so it was 40 year, 20 year and now today," Travolta reminisced.
"My mother always told me when I was younger: 'Don't rush things, it's going to go very fast', and boom, here I am," he told Reuters.
"I've lived a long life but it has really gone fast."
Cult crime flick "Pulp Fiction" won Cannes' Palme d'Or top prize in 1994, giving a second wind to Travolta's career.
In his new film, Travolta plays John Gotti, a gangster boss who died in 2002. Travolta's wife, Kelly Preston, co-stars as Gotti's wife and the mother of their son who refuses to follow his father into the mob.
When their younger son is killed in a car accident, the pair are devastated, scenes which Preston said were hard to shoot. Preston and Travolta's oldest son, Jett, died in 2009 at age 16 from a seizure.
The Cannes Film Festival runs from May 8 to May 19. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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