John Travolta
© AFP Olivier Laban-Mattei

PARIS (AFP) - "I did feel sexy," he told a news conference in Paris about his new film "Hairspray".

"The women I liked when I was growing up were Sophia Loren, Anita Ekberg, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor ... women with a curvaceous body," he said.

"If you are going to play a woman, let's make sure it is a woman you like (...) I like well-built women."

Travolta plays the part of Edna Turnblad in "Hairspray", a musical comedy originally directed by John Waters in 1988.

Remarking that tradition required Edna to be played by a man Travolta said: "I didn't want to play a drag queen and I had to make sure they agreed with this: let me be an actor and become a woman."

Travolta leapt to fame in the 1970s with "Grease" and "Saturday Night Fever".

"Hairspray was made the way 'Grease' was made, with that spirit of play. Musicals are a different beast (...) you have to trust the surrealism (of this king of movie). The problem is lots of people don't know how to make that."

"Hairspray" was directed by Adam Shankman and stars Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken and Amanda Bynes.

©AFP