James Franco TV - Funny Or Die

The Art of Elysium, a non-profit 501(c) (3) organization founded in 1997, encourages working actors, artists and musicians to voluntarily dedicate their time and talent to children who are battling serious medical conditions. We provide artistic workshops in the following disciplines: acting, art, comedy, fashion, music, radio, songwriting and creative writing.

Palo Alto is the debut of a surprising and powerful new literary voice. Written with an immediate sense of place--claustrophobic and ominous--James Franco's collection traces the lives of an extended group of teenagers as they experiment with vices of all kinds, struggle with their families and one another, and succumb to self-destructive, often heartless nihilism.

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James Franco and Director Danny Boyle drop by to talk about surviving their new film ’127 Hours.’ Coasting along on Oscar buzz, find out what makes this film unique from Danny’s previous works, namely his runaway hit ‘Slumdog Millionaire.’ Hosted by Louise Brady.

Is James Franco a mass of contradictions? No — just an actor. Actually a very good actor.

And he faces his biggest challenge yet in the just-released “127 Hours,” (opening in New Jersey Nov. 19), the true-life story of Aron Ralston, who one day found himself stuck in a tight rock crevice in the Utah desert with only one agonizing chance for escape.

Of course, Franco, 32, who’s played a variety of real-life characters before, had his own choices to make after meeting Ralston: where the line between “true” and “authentic” fell.

“Aron is really the first time I’ve played a character based on a real person where I’ve spent time with the person first,” Franco says. “And he walked me through everything, told us every detail about that ordeal. But when we made it, it wasn’t really about slavishly trying to capture every gesture. It was more about doing it in a way that enough of Aron would bubble to the surface.” Helping the process was director Danny Boyle’s method of shooting — arduously long takes, some on a set but many in the same blazing terrain where Ralston’s real-life ordeal had occurred. And Franco — who spends most of the movie alone, talking to himself, and us — not only felt a little bit of that isolation, but had the added burden of keeping an unseen audience entertained.

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The star plays climber Aron Ralston, who had to cut off his own arm with a pen-knife when he became trapped by rock, in the new movie.

The gory film has generated an Oscar buzz, but director Danny Boyle nearly didn’t cast fluffy-topped James because he thought his hair style was distracting.

“I did a screen test which was a speech that would eventually become one of the video diaries in the movie,” James said. “I did it twice but I noticed when Danny was watching it back on screen he was covering my hair. The hair wasn’t quite right.”

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James Franco seems to have no problem switching between extreme real-life characters in movies, which recently has meant jumping from playing Beat poet Allen Ginsberg in Howl to finding himself howling for real while pinned under a boulder in a remote Utah canyon as wilderness hiker Aron Ralston in 127 Hours. Franco met to talk about the harshest critic of his performance (Ralston himself), his key to getting in touch with the character and his own not entirely similar personal ordeal of getting lost while in search of a Paris taxi.

James, you’re amazing in this movie, but how did Aron react to your depiction of him? Well, he said something like, “Gosh, it’s weird to watch this with a director and an actor in the room, because it’s such a poor performance!” We thought he was crazy to say that. Aron asked me why I wanted to play this role and—I still believe this—I love the way that it strips down this character and this person and everything that is familiar in our day-to-day lives and just the daily activities that keep us from looking at ourselves, you know, in a very intimate way. All of that is taken away. It’s a man alone. It’s a man facing death. So I imagined that what we had was a real way to just study what it is to be human, what’s important in our lives, and what we hold on to from our outside life and what then pulls us out, and what really gives us strength. Aron, I guess, corrected me a little bit. He told me to get out was his connection to the outside world and his friends and family. That’s given me an appreciation for people in my life.

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Franco sits down for our interview and immediately we are struck by his pencil-thin mustache.

James Franco’s finest film

SheKnows: Hello James, is the pencil mustache for a movie?James Franco: Yes! It’s for a small movie that starts shooting next week. It requires a 1920s mustache [laughs].

SheKnows: I just talked to Aron Ralston, what an inspiration. He said that 127 Hours is truly a gift to his family, especially with showing the real Aron and his family at the end.

James Franco: We didn’t have that scene in the beginning. We added it later and I think it works in that we are handing the film to Aron and his family. It’s an unusual kind of ending and part of that is really acknowledging the way Danny (Boyle) wanted to approach it — but still honoring Aron. I think because of what I’ve been told by people who have seen the movie, one thing I often hear is, “Wow, that is an experience unlike any movie I’ve seen the way it makes you feel.” When we showed the film for the first time to an audience in Telluride (Film Fest), it was weird for people because we were there, Aron was there, and it’s seven years later. [Laughs] It was almost like he had just gone through it after watching it. There he was, it was a very strange blur for him. I think that ending is a way to acknowledge the different levels of the story.

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Making his first appearance on Ellen’s show, James promoted “127 Hours” on Friday.

Caps from the interview along with the quick backstage video have been added to the gallery.

GALLERY LINKS:
- Screencaps > The Ellen Degeneres Show (November 5, 2010)
- Screencaps > The Ellen Degeneres Show – Backstage (November 5, 2010)

On Wednesday, James made an appearance on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno to promote “127 Hours”. You can view his interview with Jay below.

Caps and stills from his appearance have been added to the gallery. Enjoy!

GALLERY LINKS:
- Screencaps > The Tonight Show With Jay Leno (November 3, 2010)
- Appearances > 2010 > The Tonight Show With Jay Leno

Despite the reports of intense audience reactions to “127 Hours” — including fainting and nausea — star James Franco said the diverse range of emotions is part of a heightened movie-going experience due to director Danny Boyle’s creative vision.

“127 Hours” is based on the harrowing true story of mountain climber Aron Ralston, who was pinned beneath a boulder in Utah and freed himself by amputating his own arm in 2003.

“This movie is great to watch with an audience,” Franco said. “Because I think what Danny did, when I hear [him] talk about how [he] approached the movie, and what he was interested in was creating an experience,” he said. “Aron wrote the book, and he documented everything that happened. You can read the book and understand to a certain extent what he went through, but movies are a different medium, and you can really deliver an experience in a different way.”
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James Franco has admitted he felt everything in 127 Hours depended on the scene in which he appears to cut off his own arm.The actor stars in Danny Boyle’s new film which tells the true story of when adventurer Aron Ralston had to amputate his own arm after getting stuck rockclimbing.

James said: “We knew this would be the scene that everybody would be anticipating anxiously but also kind of wanting to see.

“It was a balancing act. It was finding the middle road between showing too much and not showing enough and shortchanging the story and the experience.”

He went on: “That act was like a portal for Aron to go through, and the audience, to have the full experience, needs to go through that portal with him.”

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James and director Danny Boyle were on the Today Show this morning promoting the movie. You can watch their interview below and images from the show are up in the gallery.

GALLERY LINK:
- Appearances > 2010 > The Today Show