Word: stantons
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...fact Klein was in the thrall of the Clinton charisma; his Jack is a figure that rockets off the page. In the film Stanton is less grand and less sexy, and Travolta plays it subdued, a tad mopish. His smile looks startled, as if he had just sniffed ammonia. He has the hardest job: while everyone else gets to crack wise, he has to make political platitudes sound like poetry and Stanton's skunkish behavior smell almost sweet. His Stanton is a large man unsure whether he's big enough for a job he would kill...
There were whispers that after a White House conversation with Travolta, Clinton put pressure on Germany to soften its stance toward the Church of Scientology, of which the actor is an outspoken adherent, and that in return Travolta portrayed Stanton more sympathetically. That rumor gets a sneer from Klein ("I don't think Clinton would change policy toward Germany to get better treatment from John Travolta"), but the actor has warm memories of the chat, in which he says Clinton spoke of an old roommate who had been a Scientologist. Travolta insists his performance wasn't swayed by the President...
...rallies and conferences look real. Former White House press secretary Dee Dee Meyers, who had been approached to be political adviser on the film, later asked about the production, but that was curiosity, not a threat. And Nichols did ask Stephanopoulos whether Henry would decide to stick with Stanton through the election--a question Klein left hanging, as did the original cut of the movie. "Well, of course he stays," Stephanopoulos replied. "He'd want to know how things turned...
...shooting of the last scene took place in late January, just after Monica Lewinsky had become a household name. The film's main ad line ("What went down on the way to the top") now had a Letterman leer, and the central mystery (Can Stanton cover up an affair with a young woman?) seemed less like satire than prophecy. But, of course, the timing was just a fluke of the Zeitgeist. As Maura Tierney says, "The reality is something very serious, and the movie is something we made in Hollywood, based on a book that came out more than...
...worth of tickets for The Birdcage because every one of them supported gay family values; they went because they thought they'd have a good time. And as Nichols notes, Primary Colors is, in part, about having a good time--the vertiginous good time Henry has trying to get Stanton elected, as if he and Daisy were Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland putting on the big show in their backyard...