John Travolta names the greatest role he’s ever played: “Number one my favourite character”
The career of John Travolta tells a tale to rival any of his biggest movies.
After breaking onto the scene in the 1970s, he enjoyed a period at the very top of the showbiz mountain before dropping faster than Bobby C off a bridge. What? Too soon? Anyway, come the 1990s, his stock had risen once again, having shaken off his previously corny image. Once again, though, he blew it all sky-high, making a series of baffling creative decisions that rendered him a laughingstock once again. Then there’s his personal life, which is a whole other mess of triumph and tragedy.
Across this long and bumpy road, Travolta has stepped into the shoes of some truly monumental characters. From his first purple patch, his standout roles include Tony Manero, the disco idol from Saturday Night Fever, and head of the T-Birds and all-around toxic king, Danny Zuko from Grease. During his comeback, his biggest role was easily Vincent Vega from Pulp Fiction, which led to plenty of other golden opportunities coming his way. But what about in the wilderness years since?
Speaking at the Rome Film Festival in 2019, the master of the ‘Cossack dance’ was promoting his then-upcoming film The Fanatic. It was here that he made the shocking revelation that, despite his many decades in the movie business, he had only recently reached his pinnacle.
“This role is number one my favorite character I’ve ever played as an actor,” he revealed. “It reflects my hidden passions as a fan.I understand being a fanatic. It’s a reflection of being so utterly possessed of someone else that you love. Whatever triggers your [sic] heard it was more about that than fear of a fan. Which is not something I’ve ever had a fear of.”
The Fanatic stars Travolta as a street performer named Moose who is unhealthily obsessed with cult film actor Hunter Dunbar (Devon Sawa). When a meeting with his idol goes horribly wrong, Moose’s fandom quickly turns toxic. The film itself got pretty poor reviews, although some outlets were favourable towards Travolta’s performance. I stress the word ‘some’ in that sentence, because he also ‘won’ the Golden Raspberry for ‘Worst Actor’, partially for this role. None of that is important, however, because The Fanatic was directed by Fred Durst. Yes, that Fred Durst.
The Limp Bizkit frontman and all-around chaotic force is actually no stranger to filmmaking. The man with the sexiest voice in all of music made his feature-length debut in 2007 with The Education of Charlie Banks, a coming-of-age drama starring Jesse Eisenberg. He followed this up a year later with The Hotshots, a sports comedy featuring Ice Cube and a young Keke Palmer. The Fanatic marked his long-awaited (by somebody, probably) return to the directorial medium. How did it go? Well, he was also nominated for a Razzie, this time for ‘Worst Director’, so…
Given how it was received, Travolta describing The Fanatic as a career highlight seems nothing short of preposterous. However, everyone is entitled to their own perspective, and we can’t say how he felt while making the film. Also, there’s every chance he lied just to promote the movie. Actors have been known to pull that sort of stunt in the past.
