James Franco Discusses '127 Hours'

James Franco's earning some Oscar buzz for his performance in Fox Searchlight's 127 Hours, the true story of mountain climber Aron Ralston who was trapped for five days after a boulder crashed down and pinned his arm. Unable to move and with no water left, Aron had to take extreme action and amputate his arm. Franco stars as Ralston in the Fox Searchlight drama directed by Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire), and his performance could lead to his first Oscar nomination.

Behind the Scenes of 127 Hours with James Franco

On Getting Into Character:

James Franco: "Well, we did a bunch of things. Let’s see, I met with Danny I think in maybe October or November of last year and then soon after that, he told me I should go on a diet because, first of all, Aron was in great shape but also he lost 40 pounds while he was there from water deprivation mostly. So of course we couldn’t do that over the course of filming, but one thing we could do was I could get down to a very thin state and then for the early scenes we could do various things with makeup. We actually even built this prosthetic that we ended up unfortunately calling the 'plum puss.' It’s just like this mouth piece that would put my cheeks out for the early parts of the film. Then as he started deteriorating we could use smaller and smaller versions until we didn’t use any, and I would look more gaunt than I did at the beginning." "So with the voice messages, they were scripted but I felt like, maybe he didn’t believe this, but I think he gave me the freedom to be a little loose with the words. The most important thing was that it would feel natural and because actually when we watched the real videos, one of the more powerful things about them is how simple it was and how direct and connected it was. To capture that, Danny, I think allowed me some looseness. But every once in a while there’d be a line in there and I’d say to myself, 'I don't know. I just won’t say that because it’s kind of stupid. Who talks like that?' Not even stupid, it’s just like completely unnecessary. Like, 'Give this video camera to my parents, be sure of that."

"I would try and not say a couple of those things and then Danny would come to me and say, 'Well, actually, for whatever reason, Aron’s insistent that you say those two words.'”

On Worrying Over Where to Pee:

James Franco: "Well, I think yeah, in a lot of ways it is necessary to address those kind of things because people are curious. But if you do it with humor, it makes it a little more palatable."

On the Challenge of Acting with One Arm Tied Behind His Back:

James Franco: "Was it difficult? Sure. There were a lot of things that were unusual. You don’t usually spend most movies with an arm pinned behind a boulder, but you also don’t spend most movies alone or without other actors for most of the movie. So all of that took adjusting, not just for me - it was everybody. Danny as a director I’m sure is used to directing scenes where he has multiple people and that takes certain kind of skills. If you have a fight scene, you work with the various actors in that way, or a love scene, you’re directing them to come together. But it’s always about how are these characters interacting. So when you take one away, it’s taking away something that is so essential to the way we’re used to working that everybody has to readjust."

"I’d say it’s certainly unusual but I wouldn’t say it was difficult. There was never the moment where it was like, 'Danny, we’re making an impossible [film]. This is just ridiculous. This just can’t be done.' It felt very natural, but we just had to adjust. For Danny when he’s talking about this long scene, it was like 20 minutes I guess when he finally said, 'Cut.' We figured out that that was a way to proceed with a lot of the movie. I imagine as a director it must have taken a lot of trust because we would discuss in detail everything beforehand, but then every once in a while he’d let me go. So it’s not like he’s directing it in the sense like, 'Okay, then at a minute 03, you have to be here.' It’s just letting me go and experiencing it and then also trusting his DPs that they will capture it in the right way. The shots were set up to a certain extent, but they were very mobile cameras and within that range, they could do anything, react to what I was doing. I guess what I’m saying is we all kind of learned how to do that and found the best way to make this performance feel organic."

Filling Up His Downtime on the Set by Reading Books:

James Franco: "Yeah, I think actually, I would say on this one, it actually helped me keep my sanity a bit. I would say because everybody, I think, just felt how relentless just the requirements of that film were. We were all just in this really tight space for months and it was hard. So having a book to escape in was, I think, actually helpful to my sanity."

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127 Hours hits theaters on November 5, 2010 and is rated R for language and some disturbing violent content/bloody images.