Bukowski (2014)
The Grace That Keeps This World (2014)
Homefront (2013)
This Is The End (2013)
Oz: The Great and Powerful (2013)
Spring Breakers (2013)
Lovelace (2012)
About Cherry (2012)
The Broken Tower (2011)
The Letter (2012)
Maladies (2011)
Rebel (2011)
Child of God (2014)
As I Lay Dying (2012)
Sal (2011)
James Franco had no intention of being the sex king of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. But sometimes the universe gifts us a miracle.
So it has come to pass that the 34-year-old actor has arrived in town to promote no less than three sex-filled films. In “Lovelace,” the dark story of the ’70s-era porn star, he plays Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. “Kink” is a Franco-produced documentary about the world’s largest producer of BDSM pornography. And then there’s a co-directing effort called “Interior. Leather Bar.,” a sexually charged riff on a 1980 film about gay cruising.
Has this all been part of Franco’s plan, the next step in his always-keep-you-guessing, is-he-really-going-there-now career? Or is it just happenstance, the entertainment gods smiling down upon us? Franco, predictably thoughtful on the subject, can see it both ways.
“If you think about the origins of each of these films, it is a coincidence,” he told MTV News. “But if you think about it as there’s something in the air — and I do believe there are waves of things that interest filmmakers and people in television — then maybe it’s not such a coincidence.”
A few weeks ago, James attended the Rome Film Festival for the premiere of his films as well as other events. Photos have been added to the gallery.
GALLERY LINKS:
- Appearances > 2012 > James Franco And Douglas Gordon Premiere – The 7th Rome Film Festival
- Appearances > 2012 > James Franco And Douglas Gordon Masterclass And Cubovision Award – The 7th Rome Film Festival
- Appearances > 2012 > Lancia At The 7th Rome Film Festival – Day 8
- Appearances > 2012 > ‘Dream & Tar’ Premiere – The 7th Rome Film Festival
And some videos…
Playing a bit of catchup here on the site and to start things off, I’ve added photos of James at the Gucci store opening in Brazil from November.
GALLERY LINK:
- Appearances > 2012 > Gucci store opening in Sao Paolo, Brazil
And some videos from the event.
Here are few highlights from James’ recent interview with Elle Magazine. You can check out the entire interview at their site.
ELLE: You do it all. Seriously. How do you find time to workout, date, and sleep?
James Franco: [Laughs] Um, let’s see. Working out—I usually do sit-ups. If I’m working on a film, I’ll do sit-ups for before I shoot. Like, 100 in the morning or something. Date…I don’t know. I usually work with most of my friends and people I’m seeing. So, that’s how I find that time. I get like six or so hours of sleep a night.ELLE: Artist Marina Abramovi? just turned you into a gold “demi-god” for the sixth season of Sundance’s “ICONOCLASTS.” What was that process like? How did you sit still?
JF: You know, it was fine. The final image is more interesting than the process. Maybe I was supposed to undergo some transformation by having that gold on me. I guess that maybe I was at peace for a moment. They did put honey on me in order to stick the gold on me. So that was strange. I just had to breath deep and get through that part of it. Other than that, I appreciate the idea of [being] a living sculpture, just for a moment.
“I’ll tell you this: it’s always weird to talk about a new thing,” James Franco says, stopping a previous train of thought in its tracks. “I know I do a lot of things. I’m very aware of that. I’m sure there are a lot of skeptical people, hearing about me doing music . . . To me, it all comes from a similar place. It’s like using different tools to express things in different ways.”
Sure enough, MotorCity, the debut EP from Daddy, Franco’s collaboration with musician Tim O’Keefe, has roots in several of the near-compulsively multifaceted actor’s interests. Sonically, it owes its palette to the Motown Franco immersed himself in during a stay in Detroit to film Oz: The Great and Powerful, and to the obscure soul tracks he came across either in stuff he was watching, like Blue Valentine and Breaking Bad, or simply through his iTunes Genius recommendations.
US actor-director James Franco has assured female film fans in Munich that despite his many film projects as a director, he will remain an actor to be seen on screen.
After a red-carpet reception at the Munich Film Festival on Monday, the 34-year-old who has been dubbed the “sexiest man living” assured a female filmgoer: “I won’t stop acting. My acting career gives me the opportunity to work with people that I look up to.”
The question came during the Filmfest’s Q&A session with the general public where Franco was discussing his three films as director being screened in their European premieres: Idaho, My Own Private River, and Francophrenia.
Check this out! We have our first look, sort of, at the Oz: The Great and Powerful set and characters. Entertainment Tonight was lucky enough to visit the set and managed to interview James and Mila Kunis. Check out the video below.
Oz The Great and Powerful doesn’t land in theaters until next year, and before we premiere the film’s first exciting trailer this Thursday afternoon on ETonline, we exclusively have the first footage from the set!
ET’s Mark Steines spent time exploring the incredible, imaginative production of the Sam Raimi film — with 28 different sets occupying seven sound stages in Detroit — and talked with Mila Kunis, who plays one of the film’s three witches, and Oz himself, James Franco!
“In the original L. Frank Baum books there are many witches and creatures, many more than were in the original [Wizard of Oz],” says James. “This Oz is a little different. You get to see a lot more of who this Oz is… The search for [his heart] is one of the main themes of this movie.”
At this point, we’re pretty sure there’s nothing that James Franco can’t do. He’s an Academy Award-nominated actor. He’s the author of a collection of short stories called “Palo Alto.” He directs, produces and writes his own films. He’s cast in project after project, including Harmony Korine’s “Spring Breakers” and the new Nick at Nite series “Hollywood Heights.” He’s even directing a documentary based on the world of pornography, all the while attending school in some fashion, as either a student or a teacher. We can hardly keep up!
One of the most anticipated projects on his plate is the Disney film “Oz: The Great and Powerful,” in which Franco plays the title role alongside Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz, Michelle Williams and Zach Braff.
When MTV News caught up with the ever-talented actor, he told us that he enjoys being attached to a multitude of ventures, especially something as legendary as “Oz.”
“I do like to do a lot of different things, and I think there is something really nice about being part of a bunch of institutions by being in this film,” he explained. “Disney is a place that’s been a big part of my life, and a lot of people’s lives, since I was a kid. ‘The Wizard of Oz’ has also been a huge part of my life. The [L. Frank] Baum books were some of the first books I read on my own, so I like being attached to something as iconic as this.”
James Franco is an actor-turned-artist-turned-author-turned-actor-playing-an-artist-named-Franco in the soap opera “General Hospital” — who has made a movie, “Francophrenia,” that documents the experience. He’s about as “meta” as it gets.
Now Franco has brought his knack for melding pop culture and fine art in unorthodox ways to a new exhibition for Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art. “Rebel,” which opens Tuesday, is a high-concept group show that is a loose, interpretive ode to the 1955 James Dean film “Rebel Without a Cause.”
It brings together paintings, sculpture and multimedia works by Ed Ruscha, Harmony Korine, Paul McCarthy, Damon McCarthy, Douglas Gordon, Terry Richardson, Aaron Young and, of course, Franco, who organized the show and is feverishly present throughout it, both directing and appearing in multiple pieces.
He calls “Rebel Without a Cause” “the first mainstream American movie that dealt with teenagers on their own terms.”
“And it still, in a lot of ways, is the prototype for the teen films we see today,” Franco says. “[The exhibition] is an extension of the film. It’s not about being loyal to it, as much as it is using the film as a source for inspiration and building off that to create new work.”
Also spotted was the face of Gucci’s Made to Measure ad campaign and jack-of-all-trades James Franco, who looked pretty sharp himself in one of the brand’s peak lapel “Marseille” suits. We chatted him up about his brother’s big GQ moment, his go-to cardigan, and of course, this look.
GQ Eye: We’re at a Gucci event, you’ve been the face of the brand, and you obviously wear a lot of Gucci on and off the red carpet. Do you have a favorite look or piece you’ve worn over the years?
James Franco: I’m a big cardigan sweater guy.GQ Eye: We’ve seen you rock a particular navy one a few times, even boldly over a suit.
James Franco: I love that one. Although I’m wearing a lighter blue one in this new movie directed by Seth Rogen. We all play ourselves, so I’m of course wearing Gucci. I’m wearing a sweater I’ve worn before, but it’s a thicker and light blue.