‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ cast on The View

author: Gel | date: 5 August, 2011 | categories: Interviews
comments: 1 Comment

Thanks to Mel, here’s the interview the Rise of the Planet of the Apes cast did on The View. Unfortunately, it’s not the full interview, but it’s better than nothing!

And screencaptures from the interview have also been added to the gallery.

GALLERY LINK:
- Screencaps > The View (August 5, 2011)

Franco: Human, animal relations focus of ‘Apes’

author: Gel | date: 5 August, 2011 | categories: Interviews
comments: No Comments

Even though he scored an Oscar nomination for his performance in “127 Hours” last year, James Franco is hoping that his new movie will put more focus on his acting career and less on his critically panned Academy Awards hosting stint and disastrous follow-up film, “Your Highness.”

In “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” he plays a scientist in what is a prequel to the “Planet of the Apes” movie that launched four sequels, one remake and a couple of TV series.

Q: Were you a fan of the original “Apes” movies?

A: Well, the first movie came out in 1968, so I wasn’t even born yet. … When I was a little older though, I watched the first one and was blown away. It’s still an iconic film with one of the most famous endings in cinema, so it’s a series that I respect, and it has a lot of concepts and ideas that I think are very interesting.

Click here to read the rest.

James Franco goes ‘Apes’ over new movie

author: Gel | date: 5 August, 2011 | categories: Interviews
comments: No Comments

James Franco is about to alter evolution.

In Rise of the Planet of the Apes, opening today, Franco brings the popular chimp-dominated franchise into modern focus.

Franco, 33, calls the live-action prequel, in which he plays scientist Will Rodman, “a new version of Apes for our day.” Gone are the spaceships and tortured humans (the last Apes film was Tim Burton’s 2001 take). In their place are white lab coats, systematic animal testing and a race to cure Alzheimer’s disease, personalized by Rodman’s afflicted father (John Lithgow).

Cue scientific tinkering gone horribly wrong

The plot centers on Caesar (Andy Serkis), a chimp Rodman has raised since birth whose intelligence has been supersized as a side effect of Rodman’s manufactured cure. Now smart enough to question his own condition, Caesar begins a tactical revolt among his ape brethren.

How plausible is it? The Apes story line hits on the debate behind the ethics of genetic engineering, and Franco says he has been contacted by groups decrying outdated testing on apes in the U.S. “To ease human suffering is a noble goal, and I am glad we have medical experimentation that has taken us out of the dark ages,” says Franco, who supports alternative, less harmful methods of animal testing. “I hope that kind of development continues.”

Click here to read the rest.

Franco’s Oscar monkey business

author: Gel | date: 5 August, 2011 | categories: Interviews
comments: No Comments

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.”

Click here to read the rest.

James amazed at Andy Serkis acting like an ‘ape’

hen the original “Planet of the Apes” movies were made in the ‘60s and ‘70s, the apes were just actors in ape costumes.  Not this time around, though… now, it’s being done digitally, with the “main ape,” Caesar, animated based on the motions of actor Andy Serkis.  We could call it “Ape-atar”…  and James Franco was amazed at how easy it was to film scenes with Andy as an ape.

Listen to the audio snippets here.

Photos of James outside the Ed Sullivan Theater

author: Gel | date: 2 August, 2011 | categories: Gallery, Interviews
comments: 1 Comment

Photos of James before his interview with David Letterman have been added to the gallery along with photos of James during (and after) his appearance on The Today Show.

GALLERY LINKS:
- Appearances > 2011 > Celebrities Visit “Late Show With David Letterman” – August 1, 2011
- Appearances > 2011 > The Today Show Studios

While we wait for the full interview to pop up online, here’s a clip from it.

James on the Today Show!

Here is James’ interview on the Today Show.

<

Scientific American Blogs w/ James Franco on “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”

Science reporter Charles Q. Choi talks with James Franco about what it means to be human and how new forms of life might challenge those notions. The interview begins after the trailer snippet.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes B-Roll & Interview

A B-roll video for the film has been released along with an on-set interview with James.

Playboy Outtakes & Scans

author: Gel | date: 16 July, 2011 | categories: Gallery, Interviews
comments: 1 Comment

Thanks to James Franco Italia, I’ve added scans from James’ interview with the magazine to the gallery. Along with this, three “outtakes” have also been added.


GALLERY LINKS:
- Magazine Scans > Scans from 2011 > Playboy (August)
- Photoshoots > Outtakes > Session #91

Playboy has their interview with James up on their site. You can read a part of it below and the rest over at their site!

PLAYBOY: In the past five years alone you’ve starred in numerous movies, including 127 Hours, Pineapple Express, Howl, Eat Pray Love and Milk, published a book as well as short fiction in major magazines, appeared in a recurring role on General Hospital, guest starred on 30 Rock, hosted the Oscars, directed short films and mounted big art projects at international museums and galleries. You also earned a B.A. in English from UCLA, got an MFA from Columbia, studied filmmaking at NYU, are now completing a doctorate in English at Yale and have been accepted into the literature and creative writing Ph.D. program at the University of Houston. Isn’t this a bit much?

FRANCO: I don’t know, but the first short film I ever directed, years before I even went to film school at NYU, is about a boy who is introduced to the concept of his own mortality when his goldfish dies. He says to his parents, “I don’t want to die,” and though they say he shouldn’t worry because there’s plenty of time, they don’t really comfort him. So he thinks, I have to do everything now. He gets a neighbor girl to marry him, gets a job, starts a family. Although I’ve changed and relaxed a bit, my behavior shows I’ve thought along those lines for quite a while.

PLAYBOY: When it comes to your academic work, how do you react when journalists and bloggers accuse you of skating by on your fame?

FRANCO: It’s a great thing. When people heard I was in all these academic programs, the reaction for some person I don’t even know was to take a picture of me sleeping at Columbia. It wasn’t even in class; it was a 10 p.m. optional guest lecture. But people love to post that picture on the internet and criticize me for taking a spot away from somebody else who would really care about the lecture. ­People sleep in class at all my schools all the time and nobody posts their pictures.

Click here to read the rest.