John Travolta’s Unfulfilled Dream: Becoming a Bond Villain
John Travolta once confessed his desire to play a Bond villain, seeing it as the only role that could tempt him back to the dark side. Yet, the opportunity never came his way.
John Travolta’s screen persona has often leaned towards the charming or the roguish, but not always the outright villainous. While Danny Zuko and Vincent Vega might not be paragons of virtue, they’re certainly the protagonists of their own tales. Yet, for a stretch in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Travolta seemed to relish the role of the antagonist, popping up as the baddie in a string of films. Whether as a renegade Air Force officer in Broken Arrow, a ruthless cyber-criminal in Swordfish, or the outlandish Terl in Battlefield Earth, he was hardly short of opportunities to play the heavy.
Despite this, Travolta eventually decided he’d had his fill of villainy. In a chat with The Telegraph, he remarked that he was ready to “close the chapter on playing villains”, but with one notable caveat.
“I would love that,”
he said, referring to the prospect of joining the James Bond universe as a nemesis.
“They’re going a different way with their villain in this next film, but I’ve spoken to Barbara Broccoli about it, and she loves the idea, so that would be great.”
The Bond Franchise: Missed Opportunities
The conversation took place in 2014, just ahead of the release of Spectre, the 24th entry in the Bond saga and Daniel Craig’s penultimate turn as 007. The creative team, led by Sam Mendes, opted to resurrect Bond’s most iconic foe, Ernst Stavro Blofeld. With the character’s roots in Eastern Europe and a reputation for cold-blooded genius, Christoph Waltz was ultimately cast. It’s a stretch to imagine Travolta as the calculating Blofeld, or as Max Denbigh, the MI6 double agent portrayed by Andrew Scott, or even as the silent enforcer Mr Hinx, played by Dave Bautista.
When No Time to Die arrived, the villainous mantle passed to Lyutsifer Safin, a scarred bioterrorist with a penchant for the dramatic. Rami Malek took on the role, reportedly under strict conditions. Safin, as written, is a rather blank slate—evil for evil’s sake, with little in the way of nuance. It’s difficult to picture any actor, even one with Travolta’s experience in playing antagonists, making much of the part.
Travolta and the Bond Legacy
Bond remains one of the most enduring franchises in cinema, and the bar for its villains is set rather high. Travolta’s name, while once a major draw, doesn’t quite carry the same weight it did two decades ago. Perhaps, had the timing been different, he might have found himself squaring off against 007. As things stand, the dream remains just that—a tantalising what-if, rather than a chapter in his career.
For now, Travolta will have to content himself with the roles he’s already made his own, or perhaps indulge in a bit of nostalgia with a Bond-themed video game session. The opportunity to don the mantle of Bond’s nemesis, it seems, has slipped quietly by.