It's not often John Travolta delves into television, and when he does you can bet it has to be something special. As was the case with "American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson."

The 10-part series documenting the behind-the-scenes of the one of most-watched televised court room battles in history has become a ratings blockbuster for the FX Network, drawing in 12 million viewers over last Tuesday's premier and subsequent encores.   

In the series, Travolta plays Robert Shapiro, a no-frills civil litigator enlisted to represent football legend O.J. Simpson after he was accused, and arrested, for the brutal murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman at her Brentwood, Calif., home.   

The trial became a national phenomenon, with millions of global viewers glued to what would become known as "The Trial Of The Century." For his part in the TV dramatization, Travolta underwent an astounding transformation, to both his appearance and voice.

"When I was offered this challenging role, and investigated the reasons why I should do it or shouldn't do it, and found out it was not going to be a guilty pleasure, but instead something meaningful and maybe messages on many levels, I decided to tackle it with a full court press," Travolta says.

"I really tried to give as much reality of Robert Shapiro as needed," he adds. "You have to do enough as an actor to invite the audience in to take the journey and tell the story. And I felt like I had to do enough of him, because he is a famous character, and he is one that we remember visually, or at least a majority of the public remember visually." 

While Travolta personally never met any of the key players known as Simpson's "Dream Team" (that also included Robert Kardashian, played by David Schwimmer, and Jonnie Cochran, played by Courtney B. Vance), he did have a connection to the case at the time via his father.

"My dad was obsessed with it because he loved football and O.J.," he tells Headlines & Global News. "He couldn't believe this was happening."

When the case broke in 1994, Travolta was experiencing a career resurgence, thanks to the success of "Pulp Fiction," which had just premiered at the Cannes Film Festival to rave reviews, and the actor reveals he feels the same excitement with this project. Thanks to that he can enjoy it on a different level.

"I feel there's a real support for this project and with that I can now watch it and not let it impinge on me with any concern," he says. "I can watch and it enjoy it from a different perspective. So that does take any attention units away from that, you can just be yourself watching it going, 'Wow, this is fun to watch or interesting or whatever.'"

The second installment of "American Crime Story: The People v O.J. Simpson" airs at 10 p.m. EST tonight on FX.

For more of out interview with John Travolta, continue reading.

As your dad was obsessed with the case, did he believe O.J. was innocent?

I don't know, because I never grilled him on that. I was still in my "Pulp Fiction" euphoria, so it was a dichotomy for sure.

Did you ever cross paths with O.J.?

No I never did, which is kind of ironic because we were around... I wasn't really a party guy, so we didn't hang in the same circles, but I knew a lot of people who did. Of course then you find the stories out after the fact, people say, oh you're doing that story? Let me tell you my story.

Did any of those stories influence anything with this?

A little bit, just in that I played it as that Shapiro always knew that he did it, but he was trying to get him off. When he [Shapiro] asks, "Did you do it?" it's a pragmatic question, I think he always felt that, but he had to play the role he was portraying what his client had told him. The whole time he wanted to settle, he wanted to get a good deal out of it. I was playing it always in that one way.

Once in the makeup was it easy to adopt the Robert Shapiro persona?

When I create a character, I do it in layers. So before I do any hair and makeup I see if I can do the behavior. After watching all these videos and reading a lot about him, I decided that I could do it with or without the makeup, but TV a visual medium. I like inviting the audience in just enough to say, "We're doing this story." And not really upstage it with my visual. There's an invitation that you have to make to the public, who are the audience.

This isn't the first time you have transformed for a role. You've done it in "Hairspray," for example.

When I did "Hairspray," I wanted to be a woman, I didn't want to look like a man as a woman, and if you didn't do the curves and lose the beard and all of that, you wouldn't believe it. Like I did with Clinton, when I was playing Clinton, I couldn't look like I was John Travolta doing it, you have to invite them enough to say we are doing Clinton now.

How much did you have to add to your eyebrows for the Shapiro look?

When you study him, it was an arch, it was an angle along with a receding hairline and the combination was what sold it. He had a bigger lower lip, so I added a little to that, and when I spoke I did it with a little protrusion, he had a different cadence to his voice, kind of like a pseudo-affected cadence, so those were the things that I used to play him.

You are getting great reviews for this, but how much do you internalize what people say about your work?

I usually don't try to seek out criticism unless it's constructive. If it has an advisory element attached, great, I learned that from Pauline Kael many years ago; she believed any criticism should be slightly constructive, perhaps if the actor did this or the director did that, it added a little hope to any declaration of negative. I've always never arbitrarily sought out opinions, I try to seek out educated opinions.

You bring some real empathy to the character as well.

Especially when he gets demoted later on, this is him saying... I hope this stays in the show, there's a scene where he's in a temple and he's pissed because they asked him to hold the Torah, this really happened, I think it's in episode eight or nine. I really fought to keep that in because I wanted some semblance of humanity, the only time he shows it is with his wife and the implication that he loves his kids. That's the only time you see him crumble. I don't know if it's in there, but I do hope it is because I love the idea.

Are you younger than Robert Shapiro was?

About the same age,

Were there any debates or discussions on set about the evidence and the guilt?

No, the writing was so thorough with each character and what each one was thinking. I'm wanting to settle, and Cochran is wanting to go for the win, it was so clearly delineated that we didn't need to have any debate because it was so well written.

After playing Shapiro, do you feel connected to him?

Not really, and when I played Clinton, and when I got "Hairspray," how connected am I to that? It's an actor playing a role, there is a moment in episode seven where I literally blackmail Robert Kardashian, it was the most despicable thing I've ever played in my life. It felt dirty, and it felt very close to me being affected by it. I hated my character for doing that.

Why did you blackmail him?

I want him to talk the group into settling. He wanted to do it, and I suddenly start to leverage him and start to make him think he may get put in jail for it. It's awful what he does at that moment, so that was a moment where I was somewhat comfortable playing him, but it was one of the best scenes in the whole series. You just can't believe he's actually doing that.

Did this change your perspective of the whole O.J. situation?

Not really, it just enlightened me. Every week we'd get the script, and we'd be dumbfounded. The week that the [Mark] Fuhrman tapes came out we couldn't believe it, because this had not been admitted to court, so it's the first time we are looking at it, and now we're going to play it. So we were both an audience and actors in the revelation of discovering what's next? As much as you learn in every episode, we were learning, and so what you hope for the end of it is that people understand how it ended up that way. You know how they always say the Oscar was one for the wrong performance; you have O.J. winning this when it should have been Rodney King. It's an aftermath of a bigger picture that this had to happen because of other reasons. That's a tricky thing.