It’s Saturday Night Fever with Hrithik Roshan. (AFP)

He walked in doing a namaste. He couldn’t stop gushing about Krrish 3 and Ram-Leela. And he may just be doing a Hindi film soon. John Travolta seemed more like a Bollywood star than the face of iconic musicals like Saturday Night Fever and Grease or the man who has films like Pulp Fiction and Face/Off to his credit.

Travolta, looking dapper in a greyish-blue tuxedo and sporting his usual bright-that-crinkles-the-eyes smile, was IIFA’s trump card this year and the man was all smiles at the 30-minute-long meet-and-greet session with the global media gathered at the Hilton Tampa Downtown in Tampa, Florida, the venue of the 15th IIFA film awards, of which t2 & Ananda Plus are the exclusive print partners from East.

“I love Bollywood! I think the kind of films I have done in my career… the song and dance that has been there in my films like Saturday Night Fever and Grease… is actually more Bollywood than Hollywood,” said Travolta.

Quizzed on his Bolly quotient, the 60-year-old father of three who has been married to actress Kelly Preston for more than two decades came up trumps. “I saw Krrish 3 recently and I thought it was fantastic. And that Romeo and Juliet film (Ram-Leela), I thought the choreography and music were amazing,” said Travolta, whose all-time favourite Bolly film is Aamir Khan’s Lagaan.

In fact, it is Aamir that Travolta counts as his “closest friend” in Bollywood. “I was in Mumbai a few years ago… I made the cover of GQ magazine and at the GQ Awards, I gave an award to Aamir… he’s a great guy and I have been a fan of his much before I met him,” said the shy-yet-friendly star.

And if Priyanka Chopra, anxious about her musical career in the US, needed a boost, it came from none other than the Grease man himself. “I think Priyanka and Pitbull did such a great job in Exotic. It was an amazing video… a lovely meeting of East and West. Musicals in Hollywood are so sporadic… no one really makes a Saturday Night Fever anymore. I think Bollywood can go a long way in influencing Hollywood in having more musicals,” said Travolta, flashing his trademark smile.

Travolta does the Bolly jhatkas with Priyanka Chopra

The reason for Travolta’s unabashed love for all things Bolly is the “magical” quality of its films. “I find your films very original… Bollywood has this very unabashed look and feel about it that makes it very original.”

And it may not take long for Travolta’s fascination for Bollywood to translate into a film. Shekhar Kapur has offered him a role in his pet project Paani, slated to go on the floors later this year. “I am very seriously considering Paani. Shekhar is a dear friend and he even asked me whether he should put in a song-and-dance routine for me to say ‘yes’,” laughed Travolta. Centred around water wars in a world in the future, Paani has been in the news for a while now, with Sushant Singh Rajput having been signed on for the lead role in the Yash Raj production.

Paani, for which Travolta will be in India this fall if he signs on, doesn’t have a leading lady yet, but Kapur might as well go by Travolta’s choice. “I really like that girl in Ram-Leela… Deepika?”

Priyanka Roy