The actor John Travolta is desperate to work with: “One can only dream”
John Travolta has had the pleasure of sharing the screen with some incredibly talented women. He memorably danced with Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction, became entangled with Nancy Allen in Blow Out, attempted to con Rene Russo in Get Shorty, and went head-to-head with Michelle Pfeiffer over the affections of Christopher Walken in Hairspray.
There’s also the small matter of Grease. Travolta played Danny Zuko opposite Olivia Newton-John’s Sandy Olsson in the classic movie musical. Their topsy-turvy relationship won the hearts of millions – despite the fact that Travolta looked way too old to be playing a teeanger – solidifying their status as cultural icons forevermore. It turns out that working with Newton-John gave Travolta a lifelong appreciation for blonde Australians, at least according to one interview.
On the Beyond the Sale podcast, the Saturday Night Fever star was asked about his dream collaborators. “Margot Robbie,” he said. “Oh my god, one can only dream. I just love her and she was in one of my favourite series called Pan Am. I met her for the first time at the Oscars two years ago and I said, ‘I saw your series Pan Am, you know, it was so good, you were so good, I heard you always wanted to be a flight attendant?’ She said, ‘No! I always wanted to be a pilot!’ and I said, ‘Really,’ I said, ‘That’s really interesting.'”
This would have piqued Travolta’s interest because of his well-documented passion for aviation. He is a qualified pilot and his home in Florida even has a runway attached to it. Pan Am followed the rise of Pan American World Airways during the early days of commercial jet travel. Robbie plays Laura Cameron, a newly-qualified stewardess working for the now-defunct company. The series also featured the likes of Christina Ricci, Karine Vanasse, and David Harbour.
This was Robbie’s first major role on a US television show. She had previously made her name in her home country, appearing on the soap opera Neighbours between 2008 and 2011. Pan Am only lasted for a single season as a result of poor viewership, but it did enough to get its star noticed. A year after the series wrapped up, Robbie appeared in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Another big picture for Robbie was Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Travolta apparently mentioned that to her when they met, but only to point out an error he’d spotted. “I said, ‘You know, in your movie, there was a mistake in it,’” he recalled. “The Pan Am 747 didn’t start service until January ’70, but [the movie is set in] the fall of ’69, and Leo DiCaprio is flying to Europe in a 747 – it wouldn’t have been possible.” Robbie and Travolta have shared a history working for Tarantino, so the latter said he would bring it up with the director the next time he saw him. “It’s fun to think of whether he would protect it, justify it, whatever,” he continued. “I’m going to see Quentin in about a month and I’m going to tell him!”
Travolta turned 70 in 2024, but shows no signs of walking away from acting. He’s set to appear in an upcoming musical comedy called That’s Amore!, directed by Nick Vallelonga, the Oscar-winning co-writer of Green Book. There’s still plenty of time to make that Robbie collaboration happen. Maybe if he stopped talking to her about planes, she’d be more up for it.
