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The 1998 role John Travolta hated every second of: “I wondered how the hell I was going to play him”
John Travolta said he initially disliked the character he was asked to play in the 1998 legal drama *A Civil Action* and was unsure how to portray him. The film followed his successful return to prominence after *Pulp Fiction*, but its poor box-office performance marked an early setback in a period when his career momentum began to fade.
Travolta played Boston lawyer Jan Schlichtmann, who takes on companies accused of contaminating local families’ water supply and causing leukaemia. He decided to portray Schlichtmann as greedy and self-centred but unaware of those traits; the film lost almost $20 million, while co-star Robert Duvall received an Oscar nomination. Travolta later appeared in hits including *Hairspray* and *Wild Hogs* in 2007, after a longer gap between commercial successes.
In short
- Travolta struggled to connect with his character in *A Civil Action*.
- The 1998 film lost almost $20 million at the box office.
- Robert Duvall earned an Oscar nomination for his supporting role.