Quotes

GENERAL
- “A lot of the people in San Francisco think of themselves as healers – not just as people delivering this base service, but giving their clients spiritual help. It’s almost like being an actor, playing a different part for each trick.”

- [About finding time to relax] “Never. It’s an impossibility. I don’t even like to sleep. I feel as if there’s too much to do.”

- [On impending fame]“The tip that I’ve gotten for success in movies and other areas is to not stop doing whatever got it good. For myself that’s working as hard as I can on the roles and staying focused on the acting.”

- “I think I’m just a mild-mannered guy.”

- [On if he's always had confidence] “Yes. It’s hard enough. Rejection’s hard. Fighting for something is hard when everybody else is not supportive. Especially in an artistic field where it’s a lot of yourself that’s being rejected, it’s not just a numbers report. It’s you they’re saying no to.”

- [On female fans throwing themselves at him after the release of Spider-Man] “It hasn’t happened, though people do recognize me more often now.”

- [Spiderman Comics]“I read all the old comics – the first hundred or so, I guess.”

- [On staying in shape]“Nah. I think I’m more like you. But I also don’t want to take my shirt off and have the beer belly hanging out in the boxing scenes.”

- [On staying out of tabloids]“The paparazzi can be sharks. The new thing is they surround someone’s car so they can’t even move and they just take pictures of them, it’s maybe mostly the girls. I’m sure people tip off the press when they’re going to be somewhere but they’re also hunted. I tend not to go out so they can’t find me, I guess.

- “Teens today rule the world. The whole culture – movies, music – is pointed at young people. They have so ‘much’ power.”

- “For whatever reason, I have an emotional life that wants to come out.”

- “There’s a fear that fame is corrupting, maybe because one is more conscious of critics and how you are received and everything.”

ACTING
- [On being rejected] “I went on maybe hundreds of auditions that I didn’t get. My motto is: I work hard, whether or not it goes well. I try to stay away from a vengeance mentality. Just do my work and move on. The theater’s been helpful in that. If it doesn’t work out in the big professional world, I always have the theater to satisfy whatever acting needs I have.”

- “Recently I’ve been offered a lot of movies, but I’ve turned a lot down. I’m not against commercial movies, but I want something of substance.”

- “There’s a large chunk of me in all the parts. As an actor, I got involved largely because I want to let things out. The best acting is that that is most real and the only way to do that, is to genuinely feel it.”

- “I didn’t really know who I was or how to express myself. It wasn’t until I got to L.A. and I found the acting thing. It was like a miracle. It changed me.”

- “I don’t necessarily need to play the rebellious son, but I feel unsatisfied if I do anything light. Light doesn’t really interest me.”

- “A lot of things can be read into it, but essentially it’s about the desire to be an artist and what a struggle that is. It’s about everything. You’ve got issues of being a man, finding meaning and the struggle to express oneself. The sad thing is that sometimes someone doesn’t really have the talent or the voice to do that.”

- “As far as… what they’ve given me so far, in the last two movies – I feel like I have the most kind of tortured character in the movies and so it’s always great to play as an actor.”

- “I guess I`ve played a lot of brooding, troubled kinds of characters that are very inward.”

- “Acting is an art form and you want to take roles that are challenged and it’s more of a challenge, I think, to play dark characters. Not that I want to always play those, but it is a challenge and challenges are rewarding and fun.”

- “You know, directors kind of want different things. Some of them think that if they just are always talking to you and keeping your spirits up and everything that it helps you, and then some leave you alone and give you your space.”

- “I think for a while I was seeking out that heroic kind of role, and it’s hard to find that outside the military realm.”

- [On acting]“I’m at a point where I want to do things that make me happy, and this makes me happy.”

FAMILY/CHILDHOOD
- “When I was a child, I wanted to be an actor, but I had really bad buckteeth. I didn’t want to get braces, but my mom said I couldn’t be an actor if I didn’t get the braces. So, I got the braces.”

- [On nickname Teddy]“It’s just my middle name. My middle name is Edward. I know Theodore’s usually Ted but Teddy Kennedy was an Edward. My parents, I guess, couldn’t decide on a name. Everyone called me Teddy Ruxpin or Teddy Bear. It was pretty annoying.”

- “My name is James Edward Franco. Ted is a nickname for Edward. That’s what my parents called me. I also got “Teddy Ruxpin” a lot. It just got to a point where I got sick of it, so when a teacher called out “James Franco” my junior year of high school, I didn’t correct her.”

-[On his father]“He’s very supportive.”

-[On his heritage]“Franco is Portuguese. I’m one quarter through my grandfather. My grandfather and then I’m also Russian and Swedish.”

- “I worked at a McDonald’s drive-through. I could always tell when girls were interested: They’d drive around again and say, ‘I forgot something.’ ”

- “I worked the drive-through at McDonald’s and tried out different accents- Italian, Russian, Irish.

- “I was just getting into acting, so I’d practice different accents on the girls. I’d be French and then Italian. One girl who liked me came around the drive-through again and said, ‘Could you give me some Italian lessons?’ ”

- “I was obsessed with lots of girls in high school.”

- “Football and basketball are kind of the tournaments of high school, and I wasn’t very good at any of those.”

- “I was a big partier but got bored with it. I guess I was a little freak, a little geek.”

- [On his grandmother]“She took me to Japan to meet artists there. One even invited me to live with her for a year. I didn’t, and now I regret it.”

- [On leaving university]“They had ideas of how I should proceed in life. I was confused. I still felt obligated to my parents’ wishes.”

RELATIONSHIPS
- [On joining the drama club]“It was a wonderful relief. I felt like I was stabbing my girlfriend,” he recalls.

- “I was supposed to go out with this girl, but the plans mixed up because I was working late. So I went to her apartment with a flower. She was asleep, but I really wanted to see her. I figured I’d be like Romeo, and climbed up to her balcony and gave her a rose. She was very shocked. After that, it was over.”

- [About what he looks for in a girl] “Just someone I can relate to artistically and who can also be understanding and supportive of the demands of my lifestyle.”

- [On a painting for Marla]“We got in a fight and she destroyed it. I forgive her. I just haven’t given her any more paintings since then.”

HOBBIES
- [About painting] “I needed an outlet in high school and came across painting. I’ve actually been painting longer than I’ve been acting. A movie is a collaborative effort, and with painting you just have yourself.”

- “For me, screenwriting is an empowering process: to start from scratch and get my own ideas out there and not feel as an actor I have to step in at the very end of the process.”

- “Painting is wonderful because it’s so private. You’re not beholden to a director or a producer. But acting has been really saving to me. It’s so expressive and free.”

- “This year, I directed two low-budget feature films called The Ape and Fool’s Gold. They’re based on two short plays I wrote with my partner Merriweather Williams, who writes for SpongeBob SquarePants. I financed them with Spider-Man money, so there was no pressure to cast anybody [we didn't want] or get investors their money back. It was really low pressure. I loved it. I even had [some crew guys] who worked on Kevin Smith’s films. It’s great being your own boss.”

- [On writing and directing]“You need an education to understand some of the work. There are so many books that I love, but they would be hard to make [into films]. Some great novels don’t make great movies, and then something pulp like ‘The Godfather’ becomes one of the greatest movies of all time. It’s tricky.”

- “I was a literature major at UCLA, so I always had an inclination to write.”

- [On painting]“I do large somewhat abstract but kind of cartoon-y images. They’re about eight to 10 feet. I just had a show in L.A. at a place called the Glu gallery. It’s just something I do on my own. Movies are so big and collaborative that painting is a nice release because I’m on my own. I don’t know, man, I really was doing it for myself and then people were like, “Let’s show some.” It’s kind of a stressful experience for me.