Greased Lightning strikes twice
Screen grab from a YouTube video of Olivia Newton John and John Travolta perfroming
It was the classic film that proved to be timeless, spawning multiple generations of fans, and almost 40 years after Grease first hit cinemas, its stars Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta are planning to reprise their iconic roles as Sandy and Danny.
Speaking to the Mirror on Monday, Olivia said she and her former co-star are working on something special to celebrate the film›s landmark anniversary next year.
‘We are thinking up ways. Nothing to announce yet,’ the 68-year-old revealed. ‘Forty years anniversary of Grease, which I can’t believe. Time goes so fast. It is so exciting.’
The pair have remained firm friends since filming the 1978 hit, but the Australian singer admits she almost didn’t take on the role, which turned her into a movie star and won her legions of admirers.
‘I was very nervous about making the film, because I was an Australian, but they said, “That’s OK, you can do an Australian accent,”’ she told The Telegraph in January. ‹I worried that at 29 I was too old to play a high-school girl.›
She says it was ultimately her co-star and onscreen love interest who won her over, convincing her to star in the life-changing movie.
‘John was charming and really wanted me to do it, and that was one of the deciding factors,’ she confessed. ‘He’s a lovely man – we became great friends and he was very helpful to me on set, as I was not an experienced actress.’
The pair have even confessed to having had crushes on each other while filming the iconic movie.
‘I had known Olivia prior to Grease,’ the 63-year-old Pulp Fiction actor told TheFIX in 2012. ‘Because she was the biggest recording artist in the world at the time. But I also had a tremendous crush on her!’
‘I championed her for this part. I felt like there was no one else in the world that could’ve done it.’
And according to Olivia, the feeling was mutual, adding to the spark between their characters onscreen.
‘We both had a crush on each other,’ she added. ‘It created great chemistry.’
The pair never lost touch, and according to John, they still see each other at least twice a year, but text every fortnight.
‘I love Olivia, we shared a mega success together, Grease is the biggest movie musical in history and it doesn’t go away,’ he told Daily Mail in 2014.
Courtesy Daily Mail