POLITICS

By Jeffrey Ressner/Los Angeles

The President has a well-known talent for saying just the thing that will hook whatever individual he is talking to at the moment. No one knows this better than JOHN TRAVOLTA, who plays the character based on Clinton in the upcoming film version of Primary Colors. In a conversation with TIME, Travolta described what happened when he met his real-life counterpart at the volunteerism summit in Philadelphia last April. "I hadn't felt the exact seduction everyone says they feel when they're around him, and I wondered when it was coming," Travolta recalled. "Then he said he wanted to help me with the Scientology situation in Germany." Travolta is a strong adherent of Scientology, which is under attack from the German government. "[Clinton] said he had a roommate years ago who was a Scientologist and had really liked him, and respected his views on it. He said he felt we were given an unfair hand in that country, and that he wanted to fix it. That did it. It was like--wow! You're kidding! Really? Well, all right." The schmoozing continues. A letter from Clinton was read at a tribute that a Hollywood arts group, the American Cinematheque, recently gave for Travolta. It praised him for having "created some of the most memorable characters of our era."

--By Jeffrey Ressner/Los Angeles