James Franco on Billy Crystal’s Oscar Performance, Playing Hugh Hefner, and His Natalie Wood Connection
By Julie Miller
12:00 PM, February 28 2012
For: Oscars
Last year at this time, James Franco was being lambasted for his performance co-hosting the 83rd Annual Academy Awards with Anne Hathaway. This year, Billy Crystal is being criticized for hosting the Oscars (albeit for different reasons entirely), and Franco has returned to what he loves most: creating labyrinthian layers of art that somehow interconnect. To discuss his latest—a Rebel Without a Cause-inspired ad campaign for 7 For All Mankind—the modern-day Renaissance man dialed VF.com from New York to discuss his multifaceted fashion endeavor, what he thought of Sunday's telecast, and why no one should ever blame an Oscars host.
Julie Miller: How’s your day going so far?
James Franco: It’s not bad. I took the red eye in from L.A. and went to class this morning.
You’re always so busy. How do you find time to sleep?
I sleep on the planes.
One of the many projects you are working on right now is your 7 for All Mankind ad campaign. How did that come about?
The people over at [the advertising agency] Lipman had a new client, 7 for All Mankind, and they knew that they wanted something different. Usually they’ll work with great photographers, but [laughs] I guess they wanted something other than that because they came to me. The approach they wanted to take was something I felt comfortable with—I’m not a professional studio photographer, but I have done lengthy shoots that involve multiple mediums being used simultaneously. So, you know, someone will be shooting Polaroids, and then someone will be shooting digital, and then someone will be shooting on 8 mm film.
What appeals to you about capturing fashion?
After I worked with Elle for a project, I worked with Agyness Deyn and Natalia Bonifacci, and this guy who works for Visionaire who brought me on to do my first magazine shoot for VMAN. After doing those things, I got more confidence, and I started to really appreciate fashion shoots. Shoots are allowed to go in extreme directions, and unlike movies, they’re not so dependent on narratives—although you can weave suggestions of narratives into them. You don’t have to strangle it into some kind of narrative art. It can just be. There’s something really liberating about that to me.
You did incorporate a narrative here related to the behind-the-scenes stories about Rebel Without a Cause.
In a way. It was very loose, but we’d been working on this project for MOCA in L.A. called Rebel. It’s a big collaboration between contemporary artists like Paul McCarthy, Damon McCarthy, Douglas Gordon, Harmony Korine, Ed Ruscha, and Aaron Young. The shoots I was talking about—where we would just spend a whole night shooting in a bunch of different formats—some of those projects were made for this show that will open in May. The 7 campaign seemed to really fit with that well, considering that it was shot in L.A. with the multimedia approach. We used some of the Rebel themes in there.
Like what?
We focused on James Dean quite a bit, and [Rebel Without a Cause director] Nicholas Ray, and Dennis Hopper. Then I made a feature film out of the last day of Sal Mineo’s life. We hadn’t really spent a lot of time on Natalie Wood. Strangely, right when we were getting ready to do the shoot, they re-opened the case about Natalie’s death. We were shooting at the beach at the time and it just seemed like there were certain themes based on Natalie Wood that could be worked into it in a very, very loose way.
You portrayed James Dean during the time that he was making Rebel Without a Cause. What drew you back to that icon and that period in his life?
I think what intrigues me about Rebel Without a Cause is that there are so many layers and different kinds of resonances surrounding the movie. There’s the subject matter of the movie, which is teenage rebellion, strife between parents and children, deep Freudian issues, and then on top of that, there is all of this resonance that derives from the people that were involved in the making of the film. All of the legend that surrounds those figures, too—whether it’s real or just made up at this point, it doesn’t really matter, because 57 years later, the fiction is just as powerful as the facts. There is so much to be mined there.
This is a fashion campaign, but were you ever concerned that some people might interpret this as James Franco selling jeans?
No, not at all. In a way, it’s like we infiltrated the fashion world with our idea. I like fashion. I see it as a creative endeavor, and I’m making a documentary about Gucci because I am interested in all creative processes. One thing that happens in mainstream culture, movies, television, is that they appropriate anything that will sell their products. I guess when you asked me that question, that is kind of making the assumption that advertising is just kind of a watering down or selling out, but I feel like here, with the way it’s been done, it’s an even melding of both worlds. The ideas and images we’ve created in the MOCA show are now being distributed through to the outlets for the fashion.
Your videos and photos have a great 70s-era Los Angeles feel to them and I know that you just finished shooting Lovelace, which also takes place in Los Angeles in the 70s. How did you prepare to play Hugh Hefner?
I watched as many interviews with Hugh Hefner from that time as I could find. I only worked one day on that, but he is a very interesting man and it’s fun to jump into his shoes.
It looked like you were wearing a crushed-velvet leisure suit. Is that something you would consider bringing back into style?
It was very comfortable.
You just signed onto a project with Jonah Hill, who was nominated for an Oscar this year. Did you watch this weekend’s Academy Awards?
I did watch the Oscars. I was at the Soho House in L.A.
What did you think?
It was really loud and I couldn’t really hear them. [Laughs.] As far as the visual aspect, the Cirque du Soleil aspect looked pretty good but I couldn’t really hear anything.
It seems like every year there is a rush for people to call out each Oscars as the worst—and to criticize the host, like the Internet is doing with Billy Crystal this week. What do you think about that impulse?
I think the Oscars are a particular kind of thing in the film industry where peers give awards to their peers. Now it’s this big television event, so there is this pressure for it to be entertaining when it is just about handing out awards. It’s a really hard situation, because it is an activity that is really not that interesting, and to have all of that pressure to be entertaining—[and] then there’s traditions and all of this stuff. You have to just fit in all of this stuff and please so many factions. It’s a really weird show that has, I think, too many pressures from too many sides. To blame Billy Crystal for anything last night is ridiculous. There are just too many people involved. To think that Billy Crystal is the person that organized what went down last night is ridiculous.
It seems like you always have so many projects in motion at any given time. What is the James Franco Organizational Method?
You’ll have to ask my assistant, Anna. As far as getting to where I need to be on time, I depend on Anna. My weeks are pretty well organized and I just have a specific number of projects that I am working on at any time. [Laughs.] I make sure that I have time for each part of my life.
