Sunday, June 25, 2006
John Travolta & James Gandolfini
By Noelle Ashley (Saturday, April 29, 2006)
It started with the encyclopedia of crime.
Writer and director Todd Robinson flipped through accounts of robberies and kidnappings only to find a case where his own grandfather made the arrests. Stories had floated around his family for years. Now, with the help of actors John Travolta, James Gandolfini, Salma Hayek and Jared Leto, he presents the crime thriller Lonely Hearts, a film about two real-life detectives who chased America's notorious “Lonely Hearts Killers." The Killers, Martha Beck (played by Salma Hayek) and Raymond Martinez Fernandez (played by Jared Leto), earned their nickname from using personal ads to swindle and murder women. Travolta and Gandolfini play the two homicide detectives who track them down.
Travolta wore a black suit and striped tie but Gandolfini walked into the room in a short-sleeved shirt. The two men obviously have different ideas about the dress code for a press conference. But after doing four films together, including Get Shorty, A Civil Action and She's So Lovely, they are close friends. Putting their arms around each other, they joked around about the love between them.
One of the first scenes they filmed together involved a fight. “He’s a hell of a lot stronger that I ever thought he’d be,” the 45-year-old Gandolfini said of Travolta, age 52. “He really knocked me around.”
The star of the Sopranos compared playing a cop to playing a mobster. When he leaned into the microphone and said, “It’s the same,” the audience laughed. “They’re all strong men, except one is trying to do the right thing. Both try to get men to do what they want.”
“This part was kind of a sidekick to him,” Gandolfini said, nodding at Travolta. “For once, I’m not the guy losing his temper all the time.”
