Want to know what he thinks of Grease 2, modern-day musicals, or his very first role in a student film directed by George Lucas? Read on.
I think people forget that Grease wasn't exactly G-rated.
Oh, absolutely!
The funny thing is that even up against today's films, it's still kind of envelope-pushing. Why do you think that is?
I think maybe when we first did it, things were a little looser. There's also the matter that all the [innuendo] is kind of hidden, it's not all out there obviously. The double entendres and all that stuff is sort of subtle -- not that Grease is known to be subtle, but there are certain things! Also, the lyrics go by so quickly in the songs that you don't really know what they're singing.
So do you feel crafty whenever you see a 10-year-old singing "Greased Lightning" without quite comprehending some of those lyrics?
[Laughs] Yes, I feel extremely crafty. The new version has some really funny things too, like when they sing "pussy wagon," we put a picture of a cat. When they say "tits," we put a cow doing the twist. It's continuing to be crafty.
You had worked with John a few years before Grease on The Boy in the Plastic Bubble. Was he the first person you thought of for the role?
He thought of me, because he had this three-picture deal at Paramount, and he asked for me to direct Grease. Originally, I was going to be directing Saturday Night Fever and then I was switched over to Grease. I don't know why -- they just switched me -- but I think I was better suited to Grease.
How different might things have been if you'd done Saturday Night Fever?
I don't know! It's hard to tell. Things could have gone a different way if I did a more serious film like Saturday Night Fever, but I had always wanted to do The Blue Lagoon -- that was a dream project of mine -- so it would have made a difference, because that was the film I did after [Grease].
The actors in Grease are sort of notoriously older than high schoolers. Was that a conscious decision, to just confront that head on and go for it?
Well, yeah. John was...I forget how old he was, 19 or something? And Olivia was 28, I believe. [Ed: Travolta was 23 and Newon-John was 29.] Once we had the perfect chemistry, we cast everyone else to fit. What's interesting is that with the new digital print, we've enhanced the colors and made the whole thing more poppy, and I think that makes the age thing moot because the whole thing is clearly bigger than life.
It's a little different from the stage musical it was based on, too. What did you want to change in the adaptation?
There were a couple of songs we didn't think would pop onscreen. There was one called "All Alone at the Drive-In Movie," and it was a nice song, but it wasn't something that John could really wail with, so we wrote "Sandy" instead. At the end, there was a song that we replaced with "You're the One That I Want" because we needed a song that John and Olivia could sing together that would be kind of bouncy and fun, and the play just didn't have that.
Of course, Barry Gibb wrote a title song for us, and we also added "Hopelessly Devoted to You," because originally the song that Sandy sang in that section was "It's Raining on Prom Night," and I had thought about doing a sequence like in Singing in the Rain where she's walking down the street and it's raining on her and her mascara is running off, and I was talked out of that. [Laughs] I guess it wouldn't have looked too pretty to have her so bedraggled.
Grease shattered a lot of records when it came out. Were you protective of those records? Do you keep an eye on films that threaten them?
No, I was just surprised it did so well. We were all treated like it was a little, small film; nobody really thought it would take off. The only movie that I thought kind of deserved to come up and take over [the record] was Dreamgirls. I loved that film and I thought it was so beautifully done that I'm surprised it didn't take off in a huge way.
When did you know that it had become a phenomenon?
It wasn't until the end of the summer, because back in those days, there was no Entertainment Tonight, no internet. The only people who knew how well we were doing was the studio execs, and when they said, "It's doing really well," I just thought they were being nice. Then at the premiere in London, there was a riot when John showed up. They were rocking the cars and a hundred policemen were trying to get into the theater, and that's when I knew we had a hit.
I've always been curious: what happened with Grease 2? Did they ever offer that to you to direct?
I was making Blue Lagoon, so I wasn't available for that. John and Olivia were not in it, so...
What did you think of the movie?
I do love that song "Cool Rider," that Michelle Pfeiffer sings in it.
The teen musical has made such a comeback in recent years. Have you seen Glee, by chance?
You know, I've been meaning to see it online -- especially the ones with Olivia Newton-John -- but I have not caught it yet, no.
You can tell that Grease was a big influence on the writers.
That's great. Well, I haven't seen it yet, but I'm trying to.
You were an actor in George Lucas's first student film back in your USC days. Do you remember anything about that experience?
We were roommates! He rented a room to me. We were all helping each other on our films -- he was a cameraman on my first film -- and his first film was on a wind-up, black-and-white Bolex. It was up in Malibu Canyon, and we shot a film about a guy who tries to escape over the Berlin border. It kind of was a theme that he later used in THX 1138, the film that got him started.
Did he give you his now-famous direction of "Faster, with more intense"?
[Laughs] Well, I was basically just running, so I don't think he had to say that.