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He showed up at Cannes to premiere his first film as a director. He didn’t know he was also about to receive the festival’s highest honor.
John Travolta didn’t see it coming. Standing at the Debussy Theater on Friday evening, just before the screening of his directorial debut, festival artistic director Thierry Frémaux walked out carrying an honorary Palme d’Or. Travolta clutched his chest. “You said this would be a special night,” he said to Frémaux, “but I didn’t know it would mean this. This is beyond the Oscar!”
Video from the AP shows a visibly emotional Travolta accepting the honor as the audience responded warmly. “Surprise complétement!” he said in French, according to Entertainment Weekly. Frémaux called him “one of the greatest artists of the 20th and 21st century.”
The film that brought Travolta to Cannes is “Propeller One-Way Night Coach,” which he wrote, directed, and co-produced. It is based on a children’s novel he published in 1997 and follows a young aviation enthusiast named Jeff and his mother on a cross-country flight to Hollywood. The film debuts on Apple TV+ on May 29.
Frémaux revealed that Propeller was the first film accepted into the 79th edition of the festival. “When John came to us in the fall, he was very humble and shy with the idea of showing the film as an official selection,” Frémaux said. Travolta, for his part, said he cried when he learned it had been chosen first.
Travolta attended the premiere with his daughter Ella Bleu Travolta, 26, who also appears in the film as a flight attendant. He wore a white beret on the red carpet. After the screening, he thanked Prince Albert II of Monaco for being in attendance and reflected on the film’s central theme: the loss of a particular kind of hopefulness that once defined American culture.
Cannes has a history of surprising guests with the honorary award. Tom Cruise received one unexpectedly in 2022. This year, filmmaker Peter Jackson was given one at the opening ceremony, and Barbra Streisand is scheduled to receive one later in the festival.
Travolta has a long and tangled history with Cannes. Pulp Fiction, in which he starred opposite Samuel L. Jackson and Uma Thurman, won the Palme d’Or in 1994. Grease and Saturday Night Fever both screened at the festival as beach presentations. He told the crowd that his favorite films throughout his life have always been Palme d’Or winners, and joked that audiences would be able to spot their influence in Propeller.
