FEW actors, few people in fact, can have lived as varied a life as John Travolta. A successful actor, a famous dancer, a chart-topping singer, a decade-long lull in fortunes, a successful comeback in films, a qualified airline pilot, a Scientologist, a husband and father-of-two — John has it all on his CV.

And yet his new film role promises us John Travolta as you’ve never seen him before.

If it’s hard to believe how, then wait until you see Hairspray.

In the remake of the 1988 cult classic film and a Tony Award-winning musical, John stars as Edna Turnblad — an overly-protective plus-sized mother! 

It’s not often an interviewee flies himself to meet me but I can claim as much with John, who has parked his 34-seater Boeing 707 at the London City airport for our meeting at the Four Seasons Hotel in Docklands.

After enthusing about planes for a time (he admits to being a ‘jet jockey’), the stocky, slightly over-manicured 53-year-old gets down to the business of promoting his new film.

“It’s a sight to be seen,” smiles John, looking rather pleased to have re-invented himself once again. “Oh my goodness. I don’t know if the world is ready to see me in a frock — I’m a big, beautiful woman. 

“When I was offered the part, my first reaction was, ‘And why are you asking me to do this role? Be in prosthetics, be 300 lbs, what value is this going to be?’ And they said, ‘Well, you sing and dance, you’re known for macho roles, it’s a funnier hook.’

“And I thought, ‘OK, why not?’ I’ve only seen part of the movie and it is pretty hilarious. It works as a comedy, regardless of the music, which I love.”

It’s John’s first musical role since Grease, the film that confirmed him as the number one box office draw of the late ’70s and gave him two number one hits: Summer Loving and You’re The One That I Want, with Olivia Newton-John.

The Grease soundtrack album sold over 10 million copies and John followed that up by branching out into country music with his hit film Urban Cowboy, in which he starred with Debra Winger.

But his star faded as quickly as it rose. A string of flops, including a disastrous sequel to his Oscar-nominated role in Saturday Night Fever, saw John eventually reduced to light dramas and made-for-television movies.

Even during this period, with his career in the doldrums, John remained something of an iconic figure, such was the lasting legacy of his roles as Danny Zuko and Tony Manero.

When he took Princess Diana for a twirl at the White House in 1985 it made headlines all over the world.

“I was at the lowest point of my career and yet in that room I felt like a frog who had been turned into a prince,” recalls John. “Nancy (Reagan) had told me the princess was desperate to dance with me so I timidly crept over and said, ‘Excuse me, Princess, would you care to dance?’ 

“She dipped her head and looked up at me and she blushed. Then she said, ‘I would love to.’ As they started playing songs from my movies everyone else left the floor. We were dancing alone. I said, ‘God, we’re in the middle of the floor with the whole world watching!’”

While his dance with the princess lives long in the memory, less well known, or reported, was a subsequent hot-shoe shuffle with The Man Who Would Be King.

“Sean Connery is my favourite dance partner,” John informs me, before hastily adding, “as far as men are concerned.

“We were at a big party for Frank Sinatra, there was every old-fashioned Hollywood name there, and my wife and I were about to leave, and Sean said, ‘Where are you going?’ I said, ‘I’ve got to go, I’m working tomorrow morning,’ and he said, ‘Not before you dance with me, you’re not!’

“And there I am dancing with James Bond, with everybody watching. He led. Being that he is my senior and he is Bond, I let him lead. I’m no fool.

“I guess since Princess Diana I’m a hot ticket to dance with, male or female.”

His only commercial success in the ’80s was alongside Kirstie Alley and a baby voiced by Bruce Willis in Look Who’s Talking. The film went to two sequels and served to keep John in the public eye but he was becoming more famous around this time for the roles he turned down that then went on to be massive hits.

Richard Gere certainly owes something to John’s lack of judgement as both American Gigolo and An Officer And A Gentleman were offered to John first. Much later on, when John’s fortunes were on the rise again, he was at it again — turning down the role of lawyer Billy Flynn in Chicago, a film that ultimately won Richard Gere a Golden Globe. 

Splash, Fatal Attraction and Forrest Gump were others that could have been very different films had John taken them on and he admits to having a tinge of regret over the ones that got away.

“I wouldn’t trade my career for anyone’s except Tom Hanks’. Other than Forrest Gump and The Green Mile, which I was also offered and should have done, and Splash, which was written for me, I still like my career better because of what I specifically contribute to it.

“Warren Beatty told me something years ago. He said, ‘Don’t worry about the success of your movies, worry about doing good movies because that will give you longevity.’ 

“I think he was absolutely right and that’s what I try to do. I always do good movies because nobody can predict success. If you try to do that, you’re going to live a rollercoaster life.”

John’s rollercoaster has been back on the upward climb for some time now. The change in fortunes was sparked by his role as a hit man with a conscience in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. Reportedly paid just £100,000 for his work — a decade later John is earning $20 million a movie — the film served a more important purpose. 

Not only did it earn him a second Oscar nomination — 17 years after the first — but it also put to bed the typecast image of John as a 1970s disco dancer.

By the time of Pulp Fiction, the slick actor had also found someone to share in his comeback success. John married actress Kelly Preston in September 1991. They had to have two ceremonies after the first one, performed by a French Scientologist minister, was declared not legal. The couple met during the filming of The Experts two years previously.

They have two children — a son, Jett, aged 15 and daughter Ella (seven). 

“Kelly and I try our best to take care of our kids,” says John. “We try to keep them happy and give them security and love and equilibrium.

“I want to protect them from the fears and insecurities I went through. When I left my family and home at 16 years old and moved to New York, nobody warned me that there were cynics. Nobody told me that there would be jealous or vindictive people. 

“So it all hit me at once when I was just 17. I was a kid thinking that everyone would love me as much as my parents loved me, but in a city like New York that is impossible.

“So I don’t allow cynicism or adversity in my children’s lives. But at some point I will have to inform them and educate them about the reality of life and what they might face.

“I am very positive with my children, I know that works so I have to be. I mean everything they do is just the best and the most glorious and I celebrate all their achievements, like most parents. They both love performing and when they sing or dance I make a big fuss of them. 

“I love being a father. I waited a long time, until I was 38, to have Jett, so I was so excited and love every minute of my time with them.”

As a multi-millionaire living in a house in Florida with its own runway, those same cynics would suggest it’s easier for John to remain positive. But with him it’s a spiritual thing.

“I will tell you a story that I think is relevant though I don’t know if this makes sense at all. I took my children to Disney World the other day and there was a middle-aged woman, a very nice looking woman with a certain charisma about her.

“We got talking and she said that she had chosen Disney World to work at purposely, because she had suffered breast cancer and she said the only way she could survive it was to be in a job that was positive.

“Before her illness, she had been in a job that had been very negative. I believe that doing a job she enjoyed probably made her a little more positive and a little more charismatic. 

“I don’t know that I would’ve made it without thinking positively and that comes from my spiritual approach. I think that has grounded me.

“My family was also very important — it was a very beautiful family. My mother was an artist, she was an actress, a director and a schoolteacher and she was very encouraging and wonderful. Her level of positive energy was amazing and she saw the good in her children.

“She helped us to become the best people we could be.”

And to see John Travolta being the best woman he can be, head for cinemas from July 20.