The general view is that actors start on soaps and then maybe graduate to prime-time television or film; normally you don’t see a film actor going to do a soap. – James Franco
When we were doing ‘Freaks and Geeks’, I didn’t quite understand how movies and TV worked, and I would improvise even if the camera wasn’t on me. I thought I was helping the other actors by keeping them on their toes, but nobody appreciated it when I would trip them up. So I was improvising a little bit back then, but not in a productive way. – James Franco
Directing, editing, and everything about filmmaking has definitely changed me as an actor. – James Franco
When I was starting out, doing guest spots on TV, and even commercials, I would go in with a whole crazy wardrobe and some terrible accent. Obviously, I was doing too much. If you bring too much flavor to it, it’s absurd. There’s something to just being spontaneous. – James Franco
There’s a tendency, when you’re directing yourself, not to give the performance as much care, because you feel like there’s too much focus on yourself, or that all these people are just standing around setting everything up, waiting for you. – James Franco
Of course there are some actors that are better than others and performances that are better than others, but they’re always embedded in the greater film. They are mediated through the work of so many other people: the director directs, the lighter sets the scene, the editors edit, the music gets put to it. – James Franco
I was an English major at UCLA when I was 18, and then I left after a year to start acting. I was educating myself during that time. – James Franco
School allowed me to have outlets so that some of the pressure was taken off the acting. Every role in every movie, I used to live or die by. Once I had these new outlets, I relaxed a lot more. – James Franco
You work really hard to make it, and maybe you get some acclaim, but then you realize there are certain limitations as an actor. – James Franco
One of the things I’ve learned as a filmmaker is to have some aspect of the movie be something that I admire greatly, whether that’s an actor I’m working with, the subject matter, or a book. – James Franco
I’m starting to teach now: I teach in the graduate film program at NYU and next year I’m going to be teaching at Los Angeles at the film program and English program at UCLA. – James Franco
In the end, I do have a group of friends and teachers whose opinions I respect, and so I guess I just have to be content with their feedback. – James Franco
The first piece of art that I ever bought-when I could afford it-was a Warhol sketch from the period when he was just getting out of doing commercial work and more into art. It’s a sketch of a young guy’s face. I guess the gallery that I bought it from thought I would like it because the young guy kind of looked like James Dean. – James Franco
When I went to film school about three years ago, the first two years you’re required to make a series of short films. I started making films based on short poems. – James Franco
I used to read a lot about myself and the projects I was doing. When I was only acting, I wouldn’t read any reviews because I didn’t find them to be very helpful. – James Franco
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. – James Franco
It’s hard when you’re doing a film based on a true story to really figure out what all those relationships were. – James Franco
I worked the drive-through at McDonald’s and tried out different accents – Italian, Russian, Irish. – James Franco
