Olivia Newton-John had only done one film before Grease, so, when she was first offered the role of Sandy, she declined. "I was very anxious about making another film, because my music career was going well," she told Vanity Fair. "And I did not want to mess it up by doing another movie that wasn't good."
John Travolta, however, knew she was meant for the role. "I wanted this girl bad in Grease," he told The Merv Griffin Show, so he went straight to her home in Australia to convince her to accept it. But Newton-John wanted to see how she would do on camera before officially accepting the part. "Olivia said, 'Well, I'll do it, but I'll have to see myself in a screen test first,'" Travolta explained. Fortunately, the two had chemistry on camera, so she signed on to the film.
The only thing Newton-John couldn't get down was an American accent. "I was very nervous about making the film, because I was an Australian," she divulged to The Telegraph, but the crew had to have her. "They said, 'That's OK, you can do an Australian accent,'" so they rewrote her character's backstory.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEpaCsrF6YvK57kHFscmtpZMGpsYyupa2nnJl6tb7UrZ9mp5ZitLOxwKycaA%3D%3D