John Travolta makes his directorial debut with Propeller One-Way Night Coach
The Cannes Film Festival has a special place in John Travolta’s heart. After all, it is where he and wife Kelly Preston, who passed away in 2020, first saw Pulp Fiction together. The film would go on to win the Palme d’Or in 1994, and earn Travolta an Academy Award nomination.
“My memory of that was the biggest screen I’d ever seen,” Travolta recalls. “I’d never seen the movie, and my wife is next to me. She grabbed my hand and she said, ‘Oh honey. This movie! Did you have any idea?’ That’s my memory of Cannes.”
It would stand to reason that premiering his directorial debut in Cannes would be equally emotional for the 72-year-old cinema legend. “What a fantastic visit,” Travolta muses, two days after Propeller One-Way Night Coach screened at the prestigious film festival. “[Head of the festival, Thierry Frémaux] loves this movie and he really wanted the world to see it,” says Travolta. “He set this up so the world would pay attention and see it through my eyes, through his eyes, through Apple’s eyes. And it’s been a gorgeous celebration for the last few days.”
What has made the experience even more special — aside from receiving a surprise honorary Palme d’Or at the premiere — was sharing the experience with his 26-year-old daughter Ella Bleu. She stars in his film as Doris the flight attendant, but to her father, the collaboration goes much deeper. “We are partners, Ella and I, and we see everything very similarly,” says Travolta. “We’re very sympatico in how we view things. The quality of what we’re looking at, we agree on. So, when we entered into this, we were partners.”
The younger Travolta describes their unique working relationship. “It wasn’t very hard to create a good rapport together, because he’s my best friend. But I think it was more of a collaborative experience because we were always together. We would constantly be running ideas by each other,” she says. “We even flew out to the TWA terminal before filming and ran through every scene that we were going to shoot. I stood in for all the characters. And I also grew up with all these stories my whole life, so it was so incredible to be a part of them coming to life.”
Propeller One-Way Night Coach is a film based on Travolta’s own children’s book from 1997, where the actor recalls a cross-country flight he took with his mother, from New York to Hollywood, that ultimately transforms this young boy’s life. Much like the book it’s based upon, the film maintains a tone of childlike hopefulness and curiosity. “We’ve forgotten what that’s like,” says Travolta. “I was the ultimate ‘looking at the glass half full and not half empty’ [kid]. I always thought life couldn’t get better. When good things happen, I just looked for the next good thing that could happen. And even if I heard interesting bad news . . . you’re looking at darkness and you feel bad for it, but you’re resilient. You recover quickly. [The film] would be an example of what we could regain, if you regain that childlike [wonder].” His positive outlook is something Travolta has maintained to this day. “It’s certainly been tested, but I can’t help it. That’s my nature,” he says. “The worst thing can happen, and I will try my best to crawl out of it and look at what could be better, what could solve it. I will look at darkness, but I don’t choose to die with it. I can’t.”
To create the stylized environment of the film, Travolta and his producing team wanted to showcase the best in their respective industry, from architect Eero Saarinen’s TWA terminal in New York to the musical hits of the era. “I said, ‘I’ve got to have that terminal in New York. It’s Saarinen’s masterpiece,’” says Travolta. “Everything in this movie reflects a master. Every piece of music was a masterpiece of the era, that architecture — masterpiece. ‘I don’t think we’re going to be able to get it,’ said my producer. I gave the assignment to him, he calls me, he says, ‘Guess what? We’ve got the run of the terminal. Any part of it.’ We turned one building into seven sets.”
Travolta took great care in introducing his daughter’s character to the viewers. “I designed this movie as though one would design the introduction of Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor or Grace Kelly,” says Travolta. “I said, ‘I’ve got to do something special.’ I said, ‘Slow motion, “Girl from Ipanema.” ’ I was watching, crying like, ‘Oh my God, this is perfect.’” The scene was aided by the fact that Travolta recognizes his daughter’s special skill since childhood. “When she was eight years old and we did a movie with Robin Williams called Old Dogs. Even as a little girl she let the camera do all the work. She never acted,” says Travolta. “Even Thierry said, ‘Your daughter is very special.’ He said, ‘I’d never seen an actress listen so well onscreen.’ It’s like she’s really having this conversation with this little boy, not acting. So clearly my plan worked.”
Should Travolta ever decide to leave his career in the film industry behind, the avid pilot can always keep busy behind the controls of a plane — including the propeller-driven Constellation airliner used in the film. “It gives me objectivity,” he says about flying. “I can be not in my head. I can be looking outward.” Ironically, it is the lack of self-refection that thrills him about directing, as well. “I don’t have to worry about playing a character and figuring out behaviour and all that stuff,” he says. “I’m watching someone else do it and I can correct it. It’s outward attention, not inward attention.” While Travolta says he will only return to directing if the subject matter compels him to the same degree as Propeller One-Way Night Coach, he will soon return to the screen in Roland Joffé’s upcoming conspiracy thriller November 1963, and reunite with his daughter in Renny Harlin’s action flick Black Tides. How he keeps his energy up is evident by how old Travolta feels on the inside. “Five to seven . . . or eight, in my mind,” he says, with a laugh. “Max nine.”
Propeller One-Way Night Coach, streaming on Apple TV