After sporting a decidedly different look at the Cannes Film Festival, John Travolta has now offered an explanation as to why.
The 72-year-old star appeared at the 2026 festival wearing a black three-piece suit, a wool beret, and a pair of round glasses. The sartorial transformation was topped off with a pocket square and black loafers.
The Pulp Fiction actor appeared in honor of his directorial debut, Propeller One-Way Night Coach, which premiered at Cannes on May 15. The star said that his look was a way to dress like “an old-school director.”
“I said, ‘I’m a director this time. You’re an actor, play the part of a director, look like an old-school director,’” Travolta told CNN.
“So I looked up pictures from the ’20, ’30s, ’40s, ’50, ’60s, and the old-school directors wore berets, and the glasses, and I thought, ‘That’s what I’m doing. I’m doing an homage to being a director, so I’m going to play the part of being a director.’”
Travolta posted a pre-Cannes vlog on Instagram, accompanied by his daughter, Ella Bleu Travolta, 26. In the comments, several fans were shocked to see him donning a beret, saying he looked almost unrecognizable.
The actor, whose career has spanned over five decades, said he’ll now be able to look back and decisively remember his outfit for the Cannes Film Festival, where his film received an Honorary Palme d’Or, one of the festival’s most prestigious honors.
“I’ll know, ‘Oh, that was Propeller One-Way Night Coach, that was Cannes, that’s when I won the Palme d’Or,’ and I’ll have a vividness of it,” he said, adding that he’s “never been more proud to win an award.”
“To me, the Cannes Palme d’Or award has always represented art at its finest,” the Golden Globe-winner wrote on Instagram. “It is beyond a humbling experience.”
