Legendary actor turned filmmaker John Travolta received a surprise Honorary Palme d’Or from Cannes director Thierry Frémaux at the French film festival before the world premiere of “Propeller One-Way Night Coach,” his feature directorial debut.
“My God. This is a humbling moment, humbling moment, so thank you Thierry from the bottom of my heart,” he told the cheering crowd.
The producers behind that moment, Jason Berger and Amy Laslett of Kids at Play, run their Los Angeles production banner out of what they call “the playground”: ping-pong table, dogs running around, no posted rules.
“There’s no rules,” Berger tells TheWrap’s Office With a View. “But at the same time we do actually get a lot done. We’re adults in the playground, so to speak. I’d say in the sandbox.”
That sensibility carried over to “Propeller One-Way Night Coach” — a passion project three decades in the making for Travolta, adapted from his 1997 novella about a young boy and his mother on a cross country flight from New York to Hollywood in 1962.
The following has been edited for length and clarity.
How did this project come to you?
Jason Berger: Our management company, Artist First, sent me the book. I have two boys and they’re both aviation nuts — planes everywhere, toy planes everywhere. So I knew instantly I could relate to the story. And when I got on the phone with John, he was lovely, just the nicest person. But also, even though it was his first time directing, he knew exactly what he wanted. That also gave me, like, okay, phew, this is going to be okay. John really had a plan.
Amy Laslett: It was an instant yes. And then I read the book and I was like, this is just the sweetest story about finding joy in the little moments, about the journey more than the destination. It was a breath of fresh air to go into development on something that wasn’t heavy. It’s a fun slice-of-life story. And it helped that John lived it — it’s inspired by things that actually happened to him, so it made it all that much more specific and fun.
Jason, you had a 14-hour first meeting with Travolta where you walked through the entire film together. What did that day tell you about what kind of filmmaker he was going to be?
Berger: It was our first time meeting in person. We had a lot of espresso, a lot of coffee, multiple meals. But it told me that he had a level of creativity and strategy — he knew every shot, he knew how he wanted it to go. And one of the things that became clear was how committed he was to 1962. He wanted everything, as John would say, to be in the envelope of that era. Down to the headrests on the seats, the salt shaker, the dishes, the record player. So I got real excited after that meeting because I was like, okay, this is going to be a lot of fun, because we’re going to be very, very prepared going into it.
Laslett: I text Jason about two hours after it started, like, how did it go? Tell me everything. And it was silence for an entire day. I didn’t know if that was a good or a bad sign.
Berger: Oh yeah. We went through every scene. And then also the music, which is such a big part of this — mid-century art and design and architecture, you’ve got Saarinen, and then you’ve got some of the best music ever made, and then you’ve got aviation. Having those three things and figuring out how to piece them together was really exciting.
Travolta came in with iPhone footage of preliminary shot angles. How specific was his vision, really?
Berger: Very. Here’s how specific it was: we not only made our days, but we were so prepared that we basically got to set and it was one to two takes. We knew the shot angles, we knew every single part of it — the production design, the sound. I’ve never been a part of something that specific. And it actually allowed you to be more creative, more collaborative.
Laslett: He’s a real historian of that era. He’d come in and say, here’s the image of the exact wardrobe I want. Here’s the menu TWA used at that time. He had done all that research in his head for probably two or three decades. When it came time to actually make the film, he’d already made it in his head. All we had to do was go shoot it.
Talk me through moving Travolta’s actual Constellation plane out of the TWA Museum in Kansas. What does that process look like?
Berger: So I flew out there, and I’m thinking in the back of my head, oh God, I don’t know how bad this thing is going to be. I get there and the plane is meticulous. It’s like someone had transported it from 1959 directly into this museum. The mural was there, all the seats. It was gorgeous.
So I tell the mechanics we want to take it out to the runway, and they look at me and say, you’re not going to take it out. I say, no, I want to see it go. They ask when. I say two months. They say that’s a year-and-a-half process just to get the engine started. I say, well, I think we got to do it in two months.
And they actually got all four engines running. I was on the plane when we towed it out. The goal was just to get it to the point where it was right about to take off. And when those engines fired up, I was like — this could either go really well or really bad. Those mechanics were incredible.
You shot across three cities in 18 days, through blizzards and fires. What came closest to derailing the whole thing?
Berger: Kansas was brutally cold. We had a kid on set, so it was get out and shoot, then put him back in a heated van, get out and shoot a little bit, put him back.
But the one that was most difficult was the fires. We were shooting just outside of Los Angeles — the 707 set — during the LA fires. We were keeping track of them, just, okay, let’s keep going, it’s fine. And then you start to actually see the fires. And then it’s evacuation notice, two miles away. We had to pack up a 300-person crew and everyone just had to leave.
I called John on the way out. We still had a scene to do. I said, John, everybody come to my office, we’ll figure out how to make the toy store work. I called every department head. We all landed at Kids at Play and we just started building. John was there with us, literally holding a paintbrush. We rebuilt that toy store in our office.
Laslett: We’ve shot a lot in our office, but this was the craziest thing we’ve ever done there. We were pulling paintings off the walls, like, we’ll replace it later. Just, everybody do something. Turn this into a full set in 20 minutes.
Berger: And I keep toys at the office for when my kids visit. So we just grabbed those and put them up. There are no egos on this at all — John was right there working. And honestly, we ended up with a better toy store than what we had originally.
Amy, what’s the one production problem you still can’t believe you solved?
Laslett: Honestly, besides that one, I think it was just the coordination of pre-production itself. We had 10 actual principal photography days across 18 days of travel. And because everything was so specific, you couldn’t just grab something while you were in New York. Every costume, every period piece had to travel with us across three cities, with a limited crew that picked up people along the way. The amount of coordination to make those 10 days work — that, to me, was the trickiest part.
The Travolta family is all over this cast — Ellen, Margaret, his siblings. At what point did the family casting conversation happen, and how did it change the film?
Laslett: We were going through the first pass of the budget and there was a line item for a casting director. We’re trying to shave things down, and John just says, get rid of the casting director, I’m going to do it. And we’re like, you’re already writing, directing, producing, you’re in it — and now you’re casting the whole movie. And he says, I’ve already cast everyone in my head. They’re all going to say yes. Take it out. And the next day, everyone was cast. Done.
Berger: And they’re all trained actors. Ellen has done a ton of TV and film. Margaret is a major voiceover actress. They all come from theater. One of the hardest jobs as an actor is the one-liner — you come in cold, you don’t know what’s going on, and you have to nail it without taking over the scene. They did it in one take. Every time.
Clark Shotwell is 10 years old and this is his film debut. What’s the moment on set where you knew he had it?
Berger: When he first walks into the TWA terminal and starts looking around. He doesn’t have any dialogue in that moment — he has to do it all with his face. Pure wonderment. I thought, this is going to be hard for a kid to pull off. And as soon as he did it, I was like, this kid has the chops.
Getting Barbra Streisand to contribute “Lazy Afternoon” — walk me through how that came together.
Berger: John calls me up and says, I got it — “Lazy Afternoon,” Barbra Streisand. We put it into the cut and it was perfect for the scene, Kelly leaning back in her seat, tired, proud, feeling all of it at once. John wanted to show Barbra the film. So we coordinated an early screening for her and Jim Brolin. She loved it, loved the song in it, said it was perfect.
Then we go into music clearances and the licensing people come back saying there’s no way we can license it. So I text John. John says, hold on. He calls Barbra. Barbra calls the label. And we got it. She’s one of his best friends.
This is an Apple Original with a Cannes selection. Where does a film like this fit in the marketplace?
Laslett: It was something we talked about before we even started filming. Because it’s a short novella — shortening it to qualify for short film festivals didn’t make sense creatively, and lengthening it to qualify for longer categories didn’t either. John was just like, we’re making it the way I want to make it, and we’ll figure it out. So there was always a little bit of holding our breath. And I think it’s meaningful that both Cannes and Apple recognized that there’s a place for something that doesn’t quite check every marketplace box. It’s reflective of where things are moving — putting creative a little above business sometimes.
Berger: They’re the most discerning. Extremely picky. What they let into the festival, what they put on Apple. It’s been a real honor.
What’s the version of success for this film that matters to you?
Laslett: Sometimes projects to the detriment of the creative are trying to say something so loudly that they lose the point. This one says something quietly. It’s quirky, funny, specific. I want it to find its audience and for people to actually watch it. I’m proud that it does what it does in a gentle, quirky way.
Berger: Growing up, going to movies with my dad — for that amount of time, he could just let go and enjoy the ride. That’s what I’m hoping people do. If you’re a little older, maybe you have a martini. If you’re a kid who loves aviation, you just want to be entertained. I want people to feel like they went on a really fun ride and feel good when it’s over.
“Propeller One-Way Night Coach” premieres globally on Apple TV on May 29.
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