John Travolta goes the whole Hog with his new hit movie

"I've always chosen my life first," announces the perennially positive John Travolta, whose all-black get-up seems somehow at odds with his sunny nature. "I had to turn down An Officer and a Gentleman [the film that launched Richard Gere as a star] because I was right in the middle of getting my licence as a jet pilot." He likes to joke that it is more than Scientology that has put him in a perennially good mood - "by nature I'm positive anyway". Travolta, though undeniably a Hollywood icon, is forever the butt of jokes. Yet, at 52, he is enjoying his biggest hit since 1999's The General's Daughter and is, evidently, loving every aspect of his large life.

Wild Hogs attracted four famous actors (Travolta, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence and William H Macy) who couldn't wait to ride Harley-Davidsons around New Mexico together while getting paid for the privilege. Perhaps it is their surprisingly infectious and poorly disguised on-screen glee at landing such a gig that has pushed the film's box-office receipts to a £50m-plus tally in the US, exceeding even wildly optimistic studio expectations.

Travolta is used to the jokes and taunts, which recently included the blanket publication of a photo in which he appeared to kiss a man on the lips on the steps of his plane. His publicist announced that Travolta's wife of 15 years, Kelly Preston, was on the plane, and that Travolta is an affectionate sort. "I've always really ignored that," says Travolta, through not remotely gritted Hollywood-white teeth. "Even when I was doing Look Who's Talking, I wasn't looking at it as some dumb comedy, I was looking at it as the biggest comedy in history. I've always seen the glass half-full. I don't say, 'Oh, the critics don't like me', I say, 'I've got a big hit'. I'm a hustler for laughs. I like making laughs."

His co-stars seem to like him, too. "He's hugely generous," enthuses William H Macy. "He has a huge heart. Everything about him is outsized - his talent, his looks. We were on the set one day, in a pool of water, in fact, when John asked us all, 'Where were you when you were 21?' We all said our pieces then he announced, 'I was a major American star' [thanks to TV's Welcome Back, Kotter] and fell backwards into the water, very dramatically. We all just howled. He's the only guy I know who could pull that off."

While his memory is not still that of a twentysomething, Travolta remains more astute in business than he is credited to be. Wild Hogs' sizeable success is thanks to an audience that has embraced its theme of men fighting mid-life meltdowns the best way they know: running hell-for-leather away. Travolta saw a gap in the market, motored in and is again having the last laugh.

But does he feel his age? "I don't feel any different than I did when I was 25. I feel better, really. I feel more focused and more healthy. I look back at myself when I was in Saturday Night Fever and think, 'he's a little boy, a young, skinny kid'. I remember my father when he was 80 saying he felt like he was 25 and it was only when he looked in the mirror that he saw that he was old."

It helps that Travolta works in a profession that doesn't put men out to pasture at 60. "No, the curtains don't come down on you. You can act to the day you die as long as you have some degree of health. That part of life is not to be worried about. Look at Peter O'Toole, Sean Connery, Clint Eastwood. They're doing some of their best work."

In selling the mid-life-crisis hook, Travolta dutifully reports that he and his Wild Hogs co-stars were much too old to hang out and party at night after filming. "We literally went from the set to bed. Sometimes we'd have dinner, but the air was so thin and it was so hot."

Travolta will star next in Hairspray, another departure on an extensive and eclectic resume. "I don't want to show up and have people think it's the same all the time. People say, 'Is there a role you'd like?' and I always say it's in the imagination of the writer. I would never have imagined playing the president or a lawyer or an angel or a hit-man or an admiral. But I do pride myself on coming up with the goods. If you create a role I will play it."

He spends little time in Los Angeles these days. He also has a house in Maine, but lives mostly in Florida, where the family estate includes its own runway and a taxi-way to the house. He owns two planes, a Gulfstream for shorter hops and a Boeing 747 that he says Qantas (for whom he is a spokesman) shares the financial burden of. "Fuel, insurance, all of that..."

Does looking back over his career as a whole show his glass as particularly full? "It does. It's been a wonderful career. More good than bad. I've been given opportunities no other actor has. I wouldn't trade mine for anyone's except Tom Hanks's, I don't think. Other than Forrest Gump and The Green Mile, which I was offered and should have done, and Splash was written for me, I still like my career better because of what I specifically contribute to it. I love the drama of it and the spectacular acceptance and rejection. It's much more exciting than a career that just moseys along."

'Wild Hogs' opens on 13 April