John Travolta: 'Dancing's part of my soul.' Photograph: Dave M Benett/Getty Images
Congratulations on your lifetime achievement award. (1) What's the best life advice you have been given?
Marlon Brando gave me great advice: never expect things from people they can't give you. That's hot. That'll save you a lot of heartbreak. And, think about it: it has a lot of tentacles. Because if you don't analyse what a person is capable of doing and if you're expecting one thing but you're getting another, well, why didn't you see that they could only give you that first thing? It's very powerful.
Do you still ever hit the dance floor?
Oh yeah, dancing's part of my soul. I enjoy it, it makes people happy, and it makes me happy.
Do you get tired of being in the spotlight?
I don't do as many movies now, so the pacing of them is better. Back in the days when I would do two or three movies a year and have to do world junkets for each of them – that was tiring, to be completely frank. But when I do a movie a year or so, or go to an event like this, there's not enough to tire me out. I do have ancillary commitments to Qantas, Breitling and Bombardier, and I do have to actively use my power in the press to help them get promotion.
What is the attraction of flying?
When I was a very little boy I lived underneath the air pattern of LaGuardia airport in New York and I watched the planes fly to their destinations. I was in love with the design of these airplanes. When I was eight, my sister took me on my first flight – then I was in love not just with watching, but also being on a plane. I grew up in a family of actors, in which air travel meant theatre and equalled these exciting vistas to me. Sports, entertainment and aviation are three of the most exciting professions in the world; you are dealing with the same magnitude.
So you are a thrill seeker?
Yeah, I think in a kind of global way, not so much that I need to run off a cliff or anything. I like the fast lane of things that matter to the world. Aviation matters to the world, entertainment matters to the world, the arts matter.
Well, you know, I love Scientology. I've been involved for 38 years, and I don't think I'd be here without it because I've had a lot of losses and different negative things that have happened over the years and it really got me through brilliantly. I would walk in to a session feeling one way and walk out feeling a lot better.
You were raised a Catholic. What is it that Scientology gives you that Catholicism couldn't?
There are techniques for actually ridding you of stresses and pain as opposed to an advisory or recommendation on how to live. I believe L Ron Hubbard resolved the human mind, and in resolving it he has also resolved human pain – that's what I really think has happened here.
You worked a lot with James Gandolfini. (2) What is your strongest memory of him?
I'll tell you two small stories that will explain how I feel about him. The background is that my father sold automobile tyres to his father in New York, and he would see my photograph in the store window, and it inspired him to be an actor. Later, we ended up doing five movies together. When my son passed away, (3) he would not leave the city until I was OK, he was worried about me, and I felt it was so human, and so unusual for an actor to have this depth of feeling about someone. Before that, we were shooting a little movie with Salma Hayek [Lonely Hearts]. He was going through a divorce and was very sad. I saw him backstage and said: "Jim, did I ever tell you something?" He said: "What?" and I said: "I loved you the moment I met you." He started to cry, because he needed to cry. That was a true connection, and I hope these two stories explain it a bit.
What is your biggest career low?
You have to understand my origins. I'm from a working-class family. We didn't have a lot, but we had the arts. You're talking to a guy who is making a living at doing what he loves doing – acting, singing and dancing. So any career ups and downs were not that significant to me, the only things that really powerfully impinged on me were my losses, and there were many in my life. Those had an impact, but short of that, movies – I love them, but they're not life.
Kathy Griffin’s stand-up is updated so much that fans rarely see the same show twice
Kathy Griffin is looking forward to coming to Florida. Not only does her current tour bring her newest stand-up to Orlando’s Bob Carr Center on Friday, July 12, and Clearwater’s Ruth Eckerd Hall on Saturday, July 13, but she is preparing for a healthy dose of spiritual reflection.
“I’m so excited to come to Clearwater and join Scientology!” she says. “The first few times I played Ruth Eckerd Hall, I had people waiting for me in the parking lot, fearfully warning me saying ‘Ms. Griffin, do you realize you’ve just been making fun of Scientology in their hub?’ I said, ‘Yeah, that’s why I do it!’”
Her upbeat personality and sharp wit bubble over when she speaks, and it is that infectious positivity and enthusiasm that has helped her build a career that spans more than three decades.
“Growing up, I was told ‘You’re going to one day lose it all and have to live in your car,’” she says. “So I just stay on that hamster wheel, but I love it. I’ve been nominated for a Grammy for Best Comedy Album and lost five times, my talk show [Kathy on the Bravo network] was cancelled, but it’s always ‘Ok, what’s the next thing?’”
And her hamster wheel has yet to slow down. She was a cast member of NBC sitcom Suddenly Susan from 1996-2000, she had her own hit reality show on Bravo called Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List that ran for six seasons (All six of which were nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality Program, with season two and season three winning the award in 2007 and 2008). She released her book Official Book Club Selection: A Memoir According to Kathy Griffin in 2009 which became a New York Times bestseller, and with her last stand-up special—last month’s Calm Down Gurrl [“It makes it gender non-specific,” she says] which aired on Bravo—she broke the record for most stand-up specials of all-time in comedy.
“Nobody gave a shit,” she says with a laugh. “But I love stand-up so much that I’m going to break my own record and do another in November.”
And for all that she has done, her stand-up is one area of her career that she is especially fond of.
“The constant that has been there for me, that’s been invaluable, has really been the live shows,” she says. “I love whatever I can do that makes people laugh, regardless of the medium, but it feels great to know I can do these live shows and people will come out and they know that they’re going to get different material than the last time they came to see me.”
She prides herself on rapidly changing and updating her material, avoiding the trap of allowing a routine to become stale—especially when fans come to see her multiple times.
“I once had the honor of playing one market in Minneapolis twice in three months, and I thought to myself ‘You know what, even if there are five people who came to the show three months ago, I’d better just change the entire act,’” she says. “I’m so flattered when people say things like ‘This is my seventh time coming to see you,’ because they know they are going to get something different every time they come out.”
Her up-to-the-minute approach, however, is not just to keep things fresh for fans, but also because Hollywood is giving her new material to work with on a second-to-second basis. “You never know if Lindsay Lohan has decided to stay in rehab or if she’s at the kind of rehab where she can go out on the balcony and do three wardrobe changes for photographers,” she says.
Case in point: Amanda Bynes.
“I’m keeping up with what direction her wig is on,” Griffin says, “I’m keeping up with her nose—sometimes her nose looks more webbed than other days.”
Bynes claimed to have needed recent plastic surgery to fix a patch of “webbed skin” between her nose and eye. Griffin has a different explanation.
“There was a show in the ‘70’s called The Man From Atlantis with Patrick Duffy, and this was an entire show that was based on a man who had webbed feet and therefore could swim faster than a normal person,” she says. “I’m wondering if Amanda Bynes wasn’t up late one night doing some salvia and saw a rerun of this show and decided that she had a webbed nose.”
What makes Griffin’s comedy so entertaining is that she calls it like she sees it, giving her fans an insider’s view of the outlandish goings-on of Tinsletown.
“My comedy is really based on my personal run-ins with celebrities and pop-culture figures, and the ever-changing news of all these crazies,” she says. “The more I work in Hollywood and television and all, the more astonished I am at how openly crazy these nut-bags are.”
Florida fans are in for the most current and up-to-date material Griffin can throw at them. “I have to give a disclaimer—don’t bring your kids or your Bible,” she says. “There’s going to be cursing, I’m going to be calling the Kardashians whores, I’ll be making fun of Oprah, I’m sure my drunken mother will have said something very inappropriate earlier that day on the phone. I’m like Brian Williams, I keep it up to the minute. “Last week in New York I did the Don Rickles Friars Roast and there were people there like Bette Midler, Billy Crystal, Joan Rivers, so I’ll be giving all the backstage dirt on that. And I’m also throwing in politicians and heads of state, everyone is fair game and everyone is on the table.”
And speaking of politics, Griffin—a longtime advocate for and supporter of the LGBT community—says she was ecstatic to hear the recent Supreme Court decision overturning DOMA and Prop 8.
“What I find as one of the most encouraging things about the Proposition 8 fight are the two attorneys who are involved, David Boies and Ted Olson,” she says. “Olson fought on behalf of George W. Bush in the Bush v. Gore case in 2000, so I had written this guy off as a conservative ‘enemy’ of the LGBT community, and then next thing you know Ted Olson and David Boies are working together. If that isn’t a sign of progress, I don’t know what is.”
Whether it's in film or reality, Tommy Boy loooveessss to entertain.
Here's to 51 MORE years of fun!
CLICK HERE to see the gallery, "Tom Cruise Turns 51; An Exciting Look Back In GIFs!"
CLICK HERE to see the gallery, "Tom Cruise Turns 51; An Exciting Look Back In GIFs!"
CLICK HERE to see the gallery, "Tom Cruise Turns 51; An Exciting Look Back In GIFs!"
CLICK HERE to see the gallery, "Tom Cruise Turns 51; An Exciting Look Back In GIFs!"
CLICK HERE to see the gallery, "Tom Cruise Turns 51; An Exciting Look Back In GIFs!"
Tom Cruise on a mission to date after divorce from Katie Holmes
Getting back out there: Tom Cruise has made a return to the dating world following his third divorce (Photo: AFP PHOTOSTR/AFP/Getty Images)
Tom Cruise is shedding his highly strung ways and has started ‘letting go’ after hitting the dating scene.
Pals of the Mission Impossible star claim the 50-year-old is ready to bounce back after Katie Holmes walked out on him last summer by going on some ‘casual dates’.
‘He’s actually a lot more relaxed and more extroverted. Since the divorce, he’s spent some time reflecting and actually letting go,’ an insider said.
Over it: Tom’s former wife Katie Holmes has moved on (Picture: Xposurephotos.com)
‘Now that he’s single he wants to get out there a bit… He’s dated a few girls, but very casually,’ the insider told Us Weekly.
Tommy boy is putting his best foot forward after admitting that divorce No.3 took him by surprise.
He said following his divorce from the 34-year-old Batman Begins actress: ‘Life is a challenge… To be 50 and have experiences and think you have everything under control, and then it hits you,that’s what life is. Life is tragicomic. You need a certain sense of humour.’
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