“When I first read the book, I was moved and I saw the film in my head”: John Travolta and Iain Softley on The Shepherd

In 1975, British author Frederick Forsyth wrote a Christmas ghost story with a unique setting: rather than in a haunted house, it is set aboard a jet. The Shepherd tells of a young RAF pilot who is given permission to fly home for Christmas, but as he crosses the sea on his jet, a technical failure leaves him very little hope of survival. The tale has since become something of a festive classic. From the moment the novella found its way into John Travolta’s hands some 30 years ago, the idea of turning it into a film has been in the air. As a pilot himself, Travolta was captivated by The Shepherd, especially because it recounts an incident that reminded him of his own near-death experience aboard a jet.

At a private screening in London, Travolta and director Iain Softley discussed the birth of the short movie based on the book, stating that everyone who worked on the project was attached to the story for one reason or another. “I actually owned a Vampire jet just like the one in the film, just for fun, and I fell in love with it,” Travolta recalls. “Then I bought a proper jet, a larger one, and one day I lost all my electricity in this plane over Washington DC. I had exactly this man’s experience in the cockpit, I knew exactly what he felt like. I felt like I was gonna lose my life, and my family was onboard. Needless to say, I safely landed the plane. Shortly after that, I was in a bookstore in Canada and I saw this book with a Vampire jet on the front of it, and I said ‘I gotta read this’, and it was exactly what I had experienced! I said, ‘One day I’ve gotta make a film of this.’ So I bought the rights to the film. But because Pulp Fiction and other films happened, there was no time to schedule this in, so after ten years I let the rights go. Then, 15 years go by and Iain wants to lure me back into the programme by being a producer and possibly, if I were willing, to play the shepherd.”

Travolta did indeed play the titular shepherd, a key figure in the tale. He had originally envisioned himself playing the young protagonist, “but 30 years later…” he said, pulling the sides of his face to appear younger, to the amusement of the audience, “…I was too old to play the young pilot.” Softley explained that Travolta was initially a little wary of playing the part of the shepherd because sometimes having an actor with a big presence on screen for a short period of time can make the film feel unbalanced. In the end, they reasoned that “a stronger presence will give a gravitas to an important moment,” as Travolta put it, and they both agreed that Ben Radcliffe, who plays the pilot, did an excellent job of portraying the rollercoaster of emotions the protagonist goes through. Travolta also gives credit to another star of the movie: “The plane is a third character in the film, in my opinion. The British have always designed the most gorgeous planes – whether it was the Comet or the Concorde – they just have a knack for designing gorgeous planes. This is a very unique-looking airplane, so it was important to allow it to be a character.”

Softley came to the story from a different perspective but he was equally touched by it. “When I first read the book I was moved, I was excited,” said the director, “and I saw the film in my head. I’ve learnt over the years that if I don’t see the film in my head, then it’s a bad idea to get involved. I wrote a longer version of the film, but then Covid-19 happened and we thought no one would ever go to the cinema ever again! I worried though that if I were to make it 40 minutes, we weren’t gonna be spending enough time with the characters. The second challenge is that the book is a monologue, and what I needed to do was to find a way of telling the story without having the character doing a voiceover. It was a challenge, but the whole time I was remembering the effect that the novella had on me when I first read it.”

Emotions played a big part in the making of the film, but Travolta was also adamant about making it as realistic as possible, so he approached his role by imbuing it with truth. “Let’s do exactly what I would do as opposed to supposition dialogue,” he recalls saying, “and so everything that we did was accurate and authentic. When you watch aviation movies it’s often cringey because they’re doing things you would never do. So I said ‘I will not be in an aviation movie where we are lying!’”

Mersa Auda

The Shepherd is released on Disney+ on 1^st December 2023.

Watch the trailer for The Shepherd here: