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On Having to Wear Prosthetics: “It’s the first time I’ve worn that large of a prosthetic,” said James Franco. “I’m trying to think… I don’t think anything I’ve done on anything else… It’s a pain to put on. You know, it takes a couple hours. I think they did a great job. It feels kind of like a raw piece of meat and they glue it on. I lie there and have to get in a couple hours earlier. I watch a movie and they go to work, and then they paint it. I don’t think it really inhibited my performance at all. You kind of just forget about it except when it’s pertinent to the scene.”
The mask didn’t impair his vision. Franco could see out of both eyes, at least for a little while. “I could although part of it… They put the prosthetic on and then you know I get hit with a pumpkin bomb, so I guess it’s kind of acidic or something. It burns my face and it also, I guess, burned my eye so they made the right eye a different color. I guess they faded the pupil and made it bluish. That required a contact that went over my whole eye and it was a little difficult to see out of that.”
Personally Growing Over the Course of the Spider-Man Movies: “I think I’ve changed a lot. I think the first one was…we filmed it about six years ago, I think and I’d done movies, some other movies before then. I’d worked with De Niro and I’d played James Dean but I was still fairly new to movies. It was the largest movie that I’d ever done at that point. We did the world premiere in Japan and Sam introduced all the actors onstage and he said, for me he said, ‘And James Franco who I feel like I’ve grown up with. He’s changed so much since the first film.’
I think I worked hard on the first film. I did a lot of research. I did more research before the first film than on any of them. I read, literally read hundreds of the Spider-Man comic books and did funny things like went to prep school and tried to figure out, I don’t know, what Harry’s kind of background was and that kind of thing. I did a lot work for it but I was a young, serious actor and I had my doubts about doing a comic book movie. And so I assumed Sam’s comments are referring to my attitude, I guess.
I didn’t do anything awful. I mean, there were no like real stories but I don’t know if I was as enthusiastic as I was on the set of the second and third films. And so when we go to the second film, I had already seen the first, and I knew that they were special movies and that Sam really put something more into these movies to raise the bar for superhero movies and comic book movies and to make them legitimate. So my attitude was completely different and I think he noticed that and responded to it. He’s always been very collaborative, but the second and third films, I think we had an even more collaborative and better relationship.
The way he works with the actors on these films is he’ll bring them in before the movie and we’ll go over the scenes and really talk about them and do a lot of rewriting, which is very rare on movies - at least the ones I’ve worked on. There’s a lot of responsibility put on the actors to make sure that their roles are being portrayed properly and that the arc’s work, and so he gave me a lot more responsibility on the second and especially on the third. I remember after the second one premiered, you know that was like a year or so before we started filming the third one, and we’d meet and talk about the character. He’d let me help him develop the character. It’s helped. I’ve taken that process.
Another thing we do is even after the scripts written and we’re shooting, there’s still so much discussion, especially with Tobey. [He] loves to go over things and really make it perfect. There’s some days when we’d be on the set and we had a release date before we started filming and so the script wasn’t perfect. I remember sitting on set for a couple scenes and they weren’t ready, and so it would just be Tobey, Sam and I sitting on a couch in the middle of the set. [The] camera crew and effects crew and everybody would just sitting around doing nothing because we were just working out the scene. [It] might be indulgent but I think it was necessary. They really wanted to get it right. Now I take that attention to detail that both Sam and Tobey have, and that desire to make the best possible, the scenes as good as they can be before we shoot, I take that into other films and that collaborative process. I really try to have that relationship with my other directors.”
Speaking of Other Films and Other Directors…: Franco has quite a few projects in the works, including The Pineapple Express. “Pineapple Express is a little different. American Crime, The Dead Girl… I did the Paul Haggis film. I don’t have a large role in any of those but if those films don’t make any money, I’m fine because I was happy to be a part of it. I think they’re special films. And Pineapple Express is a movie I’m filming right now. I’ve actually had to go on a little break so I could be here. It’s another Sony film so they made it possible.
That was a case where I wanted to work with my old friends from Freaks and Geeks. Judd Apatow is producing and Seth Rogen was a ‘freak’ with me in that show. When I had did Freaks and Geeks it was early in my career and I knew it was a good show, but I didn’t realize what a great environment that was. I took it for granted. After working on a bunch of movies, I realized how great that experience was so I wanted to, you know, do this movie so I’d be around those people again — and also just do a comedy. I think they do the best comedies around, so it seemed like a good thing. I’ve wanted to do a comedy for a while, it’s just it’s hard to find one that is good. You know, that you’re not making a jackass out of yourself for no reason and it’s not even funny.”
