Margaret Cho is booked and busy and spilling tea along the way! She released her album Lucky Gift on Valentine’s Day (music), and is in the middle of her Live & Livid tour now (comedy). She also has a kabillion recent credits on IMDb, including my favorite TV show of the year Dying for Sex, plus a newly out movie called Queens of the Dead. The logline is unbeatable: “Drag queens and club kids battle zombies craving brains during a zombie outbreak at their drag show in Brooklyn.” Sold. So clearly, Miss Margaret has a lot to promote. Last month, she went on The Kelly Mantle Show and recalled Ellen DeGeneres’ mean girl play of routinely acting like she’d never met Margaret, despite the two meeting many times over the decades on the comedy club circuit. Now, Margaret just dished on a People Mag pod that while filming the 1997 movie Face/Off, she and costar John Travolta regularly dined on beef wellington and boysenberry pie. Except for the day they didn’t share, because instead Travolta attacked the entire pie by himself, armed only with a fork and the will to dominate.
Margaret Cho revealed one of John Travolta’s most delicious secrets from the set of Face/Off.
On a podcast episode of PEOPLE in the ‘90s, Cho, who played Wanda in the 1997 action movie, said she would eat “beef wellington and boysenberry pie” in Travolta’s trailer while they were filming nearly every day.
Cho recalled that Travolta, who starred as an FBI agent alongside Nicolas Cage in Face/Off, had a specific affinity for boysenberry pies, as compared to blueberry or other kinds of fruit pies.
“One time, I saw John eat an entire boysenberry pie,” she continued. “A whole pie, without slices. He just ate the pie with a fork.”
Cho called it “great” and compared Travolta’s untamed approach to eating the nine-inch, freshly baked pies to a king’s behavior. She added that there was never any cream or ice cream on it either.
“He’s like the closest thing to a king I’ve ever been around,” Cho joked.
However, indulging in the baked steak dish and rich pie slices between takes led to some issues with the wardrobe department. Cho said her costume, which she was meant to wear throughout filming for a year, became too tight.
Cho explained that costume designers had to sew an elastic panel about three inches wide in the back of her suit “to make it fit.”
“They were so mad at me,” Cho said.
I’m not going to quibble over a single human devouring a whole pie on their own with just a fork. I mean, I can’t relate personally. It’s not like I’ve ever gone to the supermarket and perused the bakery section for a small(ish) yellow cake with vanilla buttercream frosting, possibly topped with sprinkles, that I purchased and took home and systematically consumed over a REDACTED number of sitting(s) with a plastic spoon and, like Travolta, without cutting any slices because why would I want to generate more dishes to wash when I live alone and there’s no one but the dog to witness my marriage of sloth and gluttony. I’ve never done that. What I’m more curious about comes down to these questions: Why boysenberry pie? Why beef wellington? Why beef wellington and boysenberry pie together? And why always wellington and boysenberry day after day?? Not to mention, how do you eat all that and then do anything other than take a nap for 18 hours?! Though I do thoroughly appreciate that Margaret describes this scene with reverence, calling it kingly behavior. I feel so seen and respected (even though I’ve totally never devoured dessert that way before). As for the costume designers being mad at Margaret, I’d like to think that today, nearly 30 years later, they’d be less shamey. But I can’t tell you how many times just this year alone I’ve had to have it out with my own costume department over the fit of my threads, sigh.
- NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JUNE 07: Margaret Cho at Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution Premiere at SVA Theater during the 2024 Tribeca Festival on June 07, 2024 in New York City Copyright: xRWx,Image: 879988257, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: imago is entitled to issue a simple usage license at the time of provision. Personality and trademark rights as well as copyright laws regarding art-works shown must be observed. Commercial use at your own risk., Model Release: no, Credit line: IMAGO/RW/Avalon
Photos credit: IMAGO/Faye Sadou/Avalon, IMAGO/RW/Avalon, Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon, Getty
I hope she spills more tea!
A true cake lord will put the part-eaten cake back in the container it came in, put it in the trash (because self control and enough’s enough), only later to retrieve it for further snacking right from the container, standing right by the trash bin.
Good lord, I feel like I haven’t heard of beef wellington since the 90s and now we can’t get away from it!! (Beef Wellington killer found guilty today fyi for anyone following)
I appreciate Margaret shining a light on A-list weirdo behaviour- hope her tour is going great!
Has enough time passed in Victoria to put individual Beef Wellington back on the menu yet? 😉
There must have been some …herb involved? I’m guessing this was one or two days, because after all Margaret is a comedy writer – it’s the absurdist effect, not the facts (I love her).
I too have never gotten an Entenmann’s Cream Filled Chocolate Chip Crumb Cake. And decided that’s for dinner. Because I had a bad day at work, live alone and there is no evidence I did.
I think John Travolta has been treated like a King in Scientology along with Tom Cruise. It didn’t even occur to him that this was weird behavior. Nothing is denied to them.
I love Margaret Cho she has no filter.
I still remember her spilling the tea until Tilda Swinton – never thought of Tilda in the same way ever since. She really should have turned down that white washed role.
Lol, and I didn’t eat 1/4 of a banana Bundt cake last night and find the crumbs all over my laptop this morning.
I have also never told my house guests NOT to buy a pie from the farmer’s market because we don’t need dessert, and then eaten all of the leftover pie for breakfast the following morning.
Not me.
My first Thanksgiving with my husband when we were still dating we got really high and after dinner I stood in front of the fridge and told him very solemnly that I wanted to break the social contract and just get a pie and a fork. I only know about this (so high I forgot) because when I did the same thing the next year he couldn’t stop laughing. It’s a tradition now. Like a queen!
Everyone knows a pint of ice cream is a single serving size, right? Just like a bag of Pepperidge Farm Brussels cookies…
More Margaret Cho please. She is the best!
I feel so seen by the commentariat here, haha! Kismet, thank you for one of my all-time favorite posts on this site. Brava!