John Travolta Shines as He Teaches Dance to James Corden & Aaron Taylor-Johnson in a Playful Lesson

Like every legend, John Travolta has truly matured gracefully. The 65-year-old demonstrated that he still possesses impressive dance skills when he offered a playful dance lesson to James Corden. Corden kicked off the segment by inquiring with the English power couple Aaron and Sam Taylor-Johnson about the occasion they dressed as John Travolta and Uma Thurman’s Pulp Fiction characters for Halloween. Sam and Corden then praised the timeless film, which includes the memorable dance scene between Travolta and Thurman.

Corden subsequently invited Travolta to lead a dance lesson. At the peak of his career, Travolta dominated the dance floor in films like Grease and Saturday Night Fever, and he demonstrated to the audience that he still knew how to “shake a tail feather.” Travolta instructed the other three participants in several dances, including the twist, the swim, the hip shaker, the mashed potatoes, and lastly, the Batman. Although it was a straightforward segment, Travolta’s charisma fully captivated the audience, making it incredibly entertaining to watch.

Travolta conducted his dance class on The Late Late Show with James Corden during an episode uploaded on December 5, 2019. The uplifting segment became quite popular on Corden’s YouTube channel, garnering 18.9 million views. Fans were thrilled to see Travolta return to the dance floor and left comments like “The man’s still got it – you never lose class” and “John Travolta should be declared as a national treasure. Love the guy, so nice, iconic, resilient and positive.”

The dance scene between Travolta and Thurman in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction is among the most iconic moments in cinema history. In the movie, Travolta portrays career criminal Vincent Vega, who is tasked with entertaining his boss’s wife, Mia Wallace, played by Thurman. The duo visit a venue where Mia insists on participating in a dance competition, and they groove to Chuck Berry’s “You Never Can Tell.” The dance moves Travolta showcased on Corden’s show are taken directly from that original scene.

The Corden segment uncovered some intriguing details about Travolta’s involvement in crafting the dance scene in Pulp Fiction. The star explained that “Quentin was dead set on both of us doing the twist, which is a very fun dance, but it’s limited in how long one wants to watch someone doing the twist.”

Travolta went on to say, “So I said to Quentin, when I was growing up there were novelty dances, like the swim and the Batman. I said ‘maybe we should widen the spectrum on this.’” After witnessing Travolta’s novelty dances, the director was persuaded, and thus the classic dance scene was created.