Carrie (1976)
Brian De Palma's 1976 King adaptation. Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, John Travolta supporting.
Actor: John Travolta
John Travolta became enormous with Saturday Night Fever and Grease, and the dancing is the key to everything: he moves like someone aware of exactly where his weight is, which reads on screen even when he is standing still.
The career collapsed in the 1980s, revived spectacularly with Pulp Fiction, produced a run of leads through the 1990s, and then declined again into direct-to-video work.
Pulp Fiction is the performance. Vincent Vega is slow, unbothered and slightly stupid, and the dance sequence exists because Tarantino knew what he had.
Face/Off and Get Shorty are the other two worth arguing for, and Scientology has been a defining and heavily reported part of his public life.
