Quentin Tarantino seriously tested the actor: board games and financial advice were also included in the program.
This year, one of the best films in the world, Quentin Tarantino’s magnum opus, will be 30 years old Pulp Fiction. The cult gangster film not only cemented the former video director-screenwriter in Hollywood, but also pushed John Travolta, who had seen better days, back into the spotlight.
However, for this, Travolta had to participate in an unusual casting. He got a call from his agent saying there was this young director who a Reservoir Dogs he did and Travolta is his favorite actor so he really wants to meet him to do something together. At that time, our man was pretty down, especially the horrible, creepy baby Look Who’s Talking he acted in movies, so he would have been sold a good role.
“I went to his apartment in Hollywood at 1236 Crescent Heights Boulevard and it looked very familiar. When he opened the door, I told him not to say anything, I know the living room with American kitchen is on the left, and the bedroom is on the right. He wondered how I knew these things – when I told him, I used to live here. From then on, things were on track.”
Travolta said.
Tarantino didn’t hold a traditional audition, but played a board game with him, using board games based on the actor’s most famous works. Among others, Greasethe Saturday Night Fever and the Welcome back, Kotter There were games adapting the series, and he asked him to sometimes throw in a famous quote from the given work.
The evening suddenly turned into a finance and accounting course, because Travolta was curious about how the director was doing financially and wanted to help him secure himself financially before they started working together. The invoices and checkbooks came out, Travolta went through what and how Tarantino should do it.
By the end of the nearly 24-hour board game and finance sesh, the actor had convinced the director enough to offer him the role of Vincent Vega a few days later.
“He did it because I helped him with his finances. He said that I have the analytical, theoretical, philosophical attitude that is necessary for the character. And that was enough”
– said Travolta, who a few days ago ran into his former castmates, Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel and Samuel L. Jackson at the TCM Classic Films event to celebrate the Canvas novel his 30th birthday next month.
