Travolta grateful to Pulp Fiction for second chance

John Travolta has paid tribute to Pulp Fiction for giving him "a second chance at a high-end career" in Hollywood.

The actor starred as gangster Vincent Vega in Quentin Tarantino's 1994 picture and has thanked the film for being "a next-level, upper echelon opportunity" that revived his career after a lean period following his 1970s success in Grease and Saturday Night Fever.

"The last success before Pulp Fiction was the Look Who's Talking films, so getting the Pulp offer was certainly a next-level, upper echelon opportunity more along the lines of the Oscar nomination-type performance of Saturday Night Fever and Blow Out integrity," Travolta told Variety in a retrospective for the film's 30th anniversary.

"I was one of his (Tarantino's) favourite actors growing up on Welcome Back Kotter, Saturday Night Fever, Grease and Blow Out, and he wanted to work with me."

The fact that he was one of movie critic Pauline Kael's "favourite actors" - someone Tarantino greatly admired - helped land him a role in Pulp Fiction, Travolta added.

"I think it helped his being a big Pauline Kael fan, and my being one of her favourite actors, so he raised the bar for me and gave me a second chance at a high-end career, one that he always wanted me to have," he said.

The actor emphasised he held Pulp Fiction in "one of the most special places" because it reignited his Hollywood career and returned him to his status as a movie icon that he first earned two decades prior.

Travolta - who starred opposite Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis and Tim Roth - reflected on watching the film for the first time.

"It was at the Cannes Film Festival. It exceeded my expectations because it arrived at a new level of storytelling and filmmaking and you could feel it - it was visceral. It was history in the making."