Oz: The Great and Powerful (2013)
Lovelace (2012)
Cherry (2012)
The Broken Tower (2011)
The Stare (2012)
Maladies (2011)
Rise of the Apes (2011)
Rebel (2011)
As I Lay Dying (2012)
Sal (2011)
Franco’s Oscar monkey business
JAMES Franco – actor, producer, author, screenwriter, artist and PhD student – refuses to be defined by the scath ing reviews he got for his on-stage performance at this year’s Academy Awards.
“I really could not care less about what people think of me as the Oscars host,” says the 33-year-old New Yorker, with the sort of defiant edge in his voice that suggests the almost universal drubbing did, in fact, get under his skin.
Until Franco agreed to play straight man to Anne Hathaway’s 100kW smile in front of a billion viewers in February – a performance so oddly flat that some observers accused him of being stoned – he was having a dream run.
After a decade in which he struggled to find his acting niche, the man formerly known as Spider-Man’s sidekick hadn’t put a foot wrong since his scene-stealing performance as a greasy-haired dope dealer in Pineapple Express (2008), an outrageously silly stoner comedy that had the paradoxical effect of making people take him seriously.
“It was part of a whole paradigm shift, an attitude shift, a karmic shift,” says the actor, acknowledging that previously he had been difficult to work with.
“I had a horrible approach to acting. Part of it was because I wanted to direct but (that meant) I was overstepping my boundaries as an actor.
“When I made the decision to just do my part as an actor, I was able to get along with people. I am sure that had something to do with the opportunities that came up. I was suddenly a lot easier to work with.”