After decades of movie stardom, John Travolta steps behind the camera in his latest project One-way night fanadapted from his 1997 children’s novel of the same name.
The hour-long film follows a young aviation enthusiast and his mother on a cross-country trip to Hollywood, with Travolta also serving as narrator and appearing briefly on camera. The film has been in the works for years, and others have been interested in producing and directing it along the way, but Travolta said, “I’m the only one who can connect these dots the way they should be connected” in a story based on his own flying experience.
In his first appearance as a director, the star incorporated what he learned on film sets throughout his career, as he said Hollywood Reporter At the Los Angeles premiere on Thursday, “I feel like in over 50 years I’ve watched directors, I’ve seen great films, I’ve seen good films, I’ve seen good films, I’ve seen mediocre films and I’ve seen bad films, and you can sift through what they did right, what they did wrong. I’ve only used the successful works of the greats – Robert Altman, Mike Nichols, Quentin Tarantino, Tony Scott, John Waugh, Brian De Palma.”
He sorted out what these greats had in common, noting, “It’s funny that you let them do all the work for 50 years and then you say, ‘Okay, this works, this works, this doesn’t work, this doesn’t work,’ and then you put it in its entirety, and then at the end you say, ‘This is how you direct a movie, this is what it should be done.'” Travolta also revealed that he “showed an early cut of someone very famous.” “Who’s also the director and they gave me one note, which was excellent,” but they declined to reveal who This very famous person.
Newcomer Clark Shotwell plays the young boy, Kelly Eveston-Quinette stars as his mother, and Travolta’s daughter, Ella Bleu Travolta, plays a flight attendant on the plane. Ella said her father brought excitement and confidence to the set in telling his story, and “he knew exactly what he was looking for in all those offers, so he knew exactly what to ask for – he wouldn’t do more than one or three takes, he knew exactly when he got it.” All five of Travolta’s siblings also appear in the film, which Ella said is “the coolest thing ever… We do plays and shows at home all the time, so now we’re doing it in a different environment.”
After the film’s premiere at Cannes – where it surprisingly received the Palme d’Or – Travolta said his directing experience might be a one-off, having already successfully brought his passion project to life. Looking to the future, he noted that the film is about having “something to always look forward to and see the world as half full, not half empty, and that’s the way I see life. I still see life that way. So, I’m ready for life to call me to do something that I might find more interesting than the things I’ve done in the past.”
One-way night fan It’s now streaming on Apple TV.
