If you’ve been following The People V. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story closely, and I mean really closely, researching it like a PhD course and reading every interview with everyone associated with the cast, you may have noticed something interesting: John Travolta loved doing the show so friggin’ much.
How friggin’ much? So friggin’ much that he’s running around telling anyone who will listen that he wants to do more TV. So friggin’ much that he’s giving lengthy interviews about his process for “finding” Robert Shapiro. So friggin’ much that he was practicing his makeup at home.
“He’s having fun,” said Alexander. He added: “It was very important for John that he look like Shapiro, but still be able to move his face. John was very excited to be doing this part on the show, and was doing his own makeup work back home and sending photos, saying, ‘How do you like this? How do you like this?’ He was really into it.”
What an incredible time for all of us. And the good times might keep on a-rollin’, too, as Travolta revealed after a screening of the season one finale that he’s basically given producers a standing offer to have him appear in season two, which will focus on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It turns out that story hits close to home for him, because he used his own plane to fly in supplies during the worst of it, as he explained to the Hollywood Reporter:
“These men had lost their families and lost their homes, and yet they were still looking for [other] survivors because no one had arrived at the scene yet. Then this big brute of a guy looked at me and started sobbing. He held me and I held him, and I didn’t even know him,” he remembered. “It was because I was a familiar face, and in this chaos it was the first sign of help. If I had arrived there, it meant that help was on its way.”
There are, by my count, two fascinating things about this story: One, it raises the possibility that John Travolta will play himself in the second season of American Crime Story, which I hadn’t realized was possible until a second ago and now can’t possibly live without; and two, imagine this story from the other guy’s perspective. Like, picture him telling it to someone at a bar. “Man, I was just hugging John Travolta and crying. It was crazy.” I bet no one believes him.
(Via the Hollywood Reporter)
