James Franco on 127 Hours, Persona and Why His Life's No Performance

The arm scene obviously gets quite a huge reaction from viewers, but the reaction that really surprised me was the scene of you removing, moistening, and replacing your contact lens. It's amazing how many people winced during that scene.

Really? I did [the scene], but I don't think it was in that shot. There was a different part where -- and I don't even know if it ended up in the movie, it might be there for a second -- where they shot another guy because I don't have contacts. And I tried and I tried, and you don't want it to be ruined because somebody is saying, "Looks like somebody doesn't really have contacts." So I think he got an extreme close-up with somebody's eye doing it -- but I did it as well.

And there's all of this bizarre imagery, too. You have no idea what's going to pop up next. There's Scooby-Doo, the beverage scene... .

That's all right, because that's part of Danny's taste. I actually always laugh when it's the Bill Withers song playing and it cuts to these old commercials of [laughing] people on the beach with the waves hitting them. It's Aron's thirst, but that's Danny's style bringing in that kind of thing. I think one of the things that Danny wants to do is challenge himself. He wants to use stories and material that hasn't been tackled or use old genres -- let's just say 28 Days Later, the old zombie genre -- and make it fresh. And he wants to entertain. He'd challenge himself by saying, "Here's something that maybe can't be done: A guy alone, but how do I make that entertaining? He wants to challenge audience but he also wants to entertain audiences.

I'm fascinated by your image in the media, and before I came in here, I thought twice about getting close to the reality. Do you think the media are fair to you? I mean, between the General Hospital discussions and the pictures of you on TMZ or Gawker sleeping at a lecture, is that fair?

[Long pause] Ummm... Well, here's the thing. [Takes a deep breath and exhales] I think a lot of things about this. I got to a point with my career -- we're talking five or six years ago now -- where I was doing projects that I didn't want to be doing and I didn't have faith in myself that I could do stuff that I'm interested in. Work with people that I admire. I take full responsibility, but I looked for advice from people and I listened to advice too much. Instead of listening to my own taste and looking for things that just interested me. So now that's what I do. And a big part of that is understanding... I'm sorry, this is such a big answer. As an actor, I know understand my part, my role, in a movie is to serve a director's vision. That's what I believe. [To the publicist attempting to end the interview] I'm going to extend this a little bit because he's so nice.

Ha, sure, that's very nice of you to say.

[Laughs] So I think it's my job to serve a director's vision. I didn't understand that before, as an actor. So I, in a way, was trying to direct movies from an actor's standpoint -- and that's just craziness. It can't be done and it makes the process really unpleasant and it doesn't lead to the best work. So because I have that understanding now, I only want to work with people who I look up to or whose work I respect.

Or! Or if it's a situation that interests me for some reason or another. Seth Rogen taught me, "don't do any movie that you wouldn't go and watch if you weren't in it." That's what he believes. That's really good advice -- I follow that to an extent. But there will be some movies that I'll do where I may get something else out of it. Like Eat Pray Love. You know what? If I get to work with Julia Roberts in a romantic kind of movie that's based on a book that a bunch of women readers have just loved, that's kind of like the pinnacle of that kind of thing. I just want to experience that, and if I only have to work a week on it... Why not? You know? Why not? Just go and do that.

But, also, because I've come to the understanding that my roles as an actor is to serves somebody else's vision, I want to have other outlets. I want to have situations where it can be my vision. It's just another way of being involved in films or writing or whatever, it's just a different kind of orientations. I'm collaborative. I love collaborating. It's just taking a different position in the collaboration. I can't even remember what your question was...

Is the media fair to you?

So, things like a picture of me sleeping in class? What am I going to do? It actually wasn't class; William Kentridge was giving a talk that I didn't need to be at. It's kind of OK with me because I think it's very hard for people. People don't want the guy from Pineapple Express to be going to Yale and getting a Ph. D. They don't like it. I think people just want to... If they can't get pictures of me drunk coming out of a club, the worst they can get of me is sleeping in a 10 p.m. lecture. OK. If they want to paint the picture of the stoner going to school, it's kind of OK with me because it actually takes a lot of pressure off. If that's the way they want to depict me, it's fine. Because my schoolwork isn't a performance. I'm going there because I'm getting so much out of it and I'm getting to work with all of my favorite writers or professors. So if that's how they want to depict it, it's not taking away from why I'm there. And it takes pressure off. So you kind of have to roll with it.

[Top photo: Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images]

Pages: 1 2