James Franco Quotations

I love to bring humour into my work. Because comedy is not a huge part of the art world. And big-business film takes itself very seriously.

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.

I might have to stumble a little bit more in public than others, but that's fine, I don't mind, I've developed a thick skin.

There's a tacit belief that actors shouldn't write books, they're sort of allowed to direct movies but there will be a lot of skepticism, and they shouldn't do artwork or music. There are these invisible roadblocks to gain entree to these areas for actors, and you kind of have to crash through those invisible barriers.

Directing, editing, and everything about filmmaking has definitely changed me as an actor.

It feels really sad, to me, to go to a dark bedroom. It's like surrendering to the night or something.

If the work is good, what does it matter? I'm doing it because I love it. Why not do as many things I love as I can? As long as the work is good.

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.

Not having any real direction, one writer would lead me to another.

I guess what I enjoy most is directing, because it incorporates all aspects of filmmaking. Directing is in the same line as acting - both are popularity contests, and in both you're trying to tell a story through the film as a medium.

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.

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.

I am not going to be the guy who's not pulling his weight.

I don't even like to sleep - I feel as if there's too much to do.

I get like six or so hours of sleep a night.

I still don't like going to bed alone.

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.

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

I don't need a vacation in the traditional sense, like I would if I had a job I hated.

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.

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.

It's hard when you're doing a film based on a true story to really figure out what all those relationships were.

My job is what I love. I don't need an escape from it.

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.

My favorite role ever was Alien in 'Spring Breakers'.

I guess it is kind of a hard sell. But we didn't put the house on it.

I'm a huge Cormac McCarthy fan and have read every book of his.

He's a warrior, but everything changes when he meets Isolde.

I acted professionally for about eight years, and I was writing all that time but never showed anybody any of it. There just came a point after those eight years when I thought, 'There's a lot I can do with acting - there are a lot of things I can express and do creatively, but there are also limitations.'

I think I would feel pretty foolish hanging around acting like James Dean with my friends. So I couldn't do that. I had to be away from them. I wanted to get comfortable with that, and the only way I could do that is just constantly do it.

Tristan is full of rage at the Irish for taking his family.

When I sign on for a project, I'm there to give the director all the material he or she might need to tell their story, and that's the number one priority.

Both were equally strenuous. I might feel a little sillier swinging the sword, but it's just as hard as boxing. The difference is when you make a mistake in the boxing you just get tapped a little and you shake it off. But with the swords they use real steel. Every actor had cuts on his hands and people get hit on the arms, so it's a little harder.

Um, ... Nobody has a script yet, so...

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.

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,

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.

I'm going to try to not let anyone put me in a box, and that certainly applies to the things I do outside of acting.

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.

Because acting was my only professional outlet, I put a ton of pressure on the roles that I did. I overstepped my bounds, I tried to control things that were out of my purview as an actor and in some cases even tried to direct my scenes because I felt I knew how they should run rather than trust the director.

I don't know if I could do it. I have a lot of respect for what they do. The 'Annapolis' consultant told us the biggest challenge for most people is the mental shift that's required to go there. And you really have to leave your ego at the door. You know, it's a really different way of life than most people are used to.

I feel like because I've done more gay characters, gay scenes, or gay projects than most straight actors, people see it as some sort of mission. It's more of a case-by-case basis, and just trying to capture figures that I love. I guess that a lot of the figures that I love were gay.

A director on a film really sets the tone of how people go about things, so everybody is happy to be at work and everybody does their best.

We all age. You shouldn't discount it as a subject for a film. Just because the characters are dealing with issues that you might not deal with for another 45 years doesn't mean you won't like it.

"The Wolfpack" is a real life clash of life and fiction and the saving power of brotherhood and make-believe.

If you have a profession that depends on what you look like, you can't blame somebody for caring about that. It's part of their job. So it's vanity but it's also not in a lot of cases. It's being professional.

I think all great comedies - or at least the comedies I like - it has some of the funniest moments, but it never breaks the spell for the audience. It never pushes the audience away by spoofing itself too much or undermining the characters or making them cardboard or flimsy. Everybody is really trying to do what their characters believe in - and so nobody breaks the spell of the world, even though in other ways it's a comedy and very funny.

Villains can often be one note and I would say in that case, it's not fun to play the villain. It's fun to play the villain if he a) has dimension and b) the villain gets to do all the things in the movie that in life he would get punished for. In the movie, you're applauded for them if you do them with panache. And so that's why it's more fun to play the villain.

I've come to a point where I just want to do movies that I just believe in. I have come to an understanding of filmmaking, a new understanding where I believe it's a director's medium. That means working with people that I believe in.

I think it helps the writers to sell their books if they announce my attachment. But it doesn't mean that I'm going to make the movies in the next year or two or three.

Fight scenes are really more like dances than they are fights, because you're depending on your partner to do the right move at the right time. Yes, a tough person or somebody who knows what they're doing will look better in a fight scene, but it also has a lot to do with the other person.

There's this phenomenon where people do like to announce movies that they think I'm doing that I'm not.

I loved the world of Oz. I guess as a young man, I was just drawn to fantasy worlds. I liked being transported to alternative realms where a lot of my early imagination was sparked.

There's a long tradition of teen comedies where the kids are getting drunk on beer and whatever else, so smoking a joint to me is no worse than having a beer. So, if someone has a problem with it, I'll just tell them to relax.

I always see nice images like that but I don't know what to do with them. I guess you share them with someone. Or you write them down in a poem. I had so many of those little images, but I never shared them or wrote any of them down.

I become kind of obsessive about research.

If liking Katy Perry and drinking margaritas is gay, then who wants to be straight?!

I was a black center in the middle of all the nature. I was nothing, but I could do anything.

Reviews about film acting are very... tricky, because movies are such a collaborative thing.

The new critique you're gonna start hearing about James Franco, is 'He's spreading himself too thin.'

I got arrested for graffiti. I got arrested - a lot of, like, underage drinking, drunk in public, shoplifting, you know, your various, like, suburban arrests, I guess.

For some reason, when I was in junior high school, my friends and I had, like, a cologne-stealing ring.

I am actually turned off when I look at an account and don’t see any selfies, because I want to know whom I’m dealing with. In our age of social networking, the selfie is the new way to look someone right in the eye and say, 'Hello, this is me.'

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.

This was the way the night had cashed in. Choices had been made and things happened, and here we were. It was sad, and funny. My life was made of this. Stuff like this.

I'm a big cardigan sweater guy.

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.

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.

But I don't want to die! I have so much to do!

I learned a lot of good things in my school. I've audited a lot of other schools, and I guess after a while I got a little tired of the acting school atmosphere.

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.

He was so. So dirty, and just moving in front of me, and cute. I was in love with him, especially because he was talking to me.

...it can be so boring being you sometimes, and if you were the most special thing like that, it could be really great, but maybe some people say the same thing about you, and you want to tell those people: 'No, you're stupid, it's no fun being me.

I drank from the bottle again and it was a scary plunge because I always wanted to take too much. It hurt, but it was also impressive, like being in the hands of a bigger force. And because of that, a relief.

I don't go on vacation. I don't really need vacation.

Sometimes rabbits, like, turn me on. I don't know why.

We fell in love last night. He's the coolest guy.

The wind came in languid gusts like whispered reminders.

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 put out a lot of different kinds of material, and maybe people read that as egotistical. Or maybe, since a lot of it does involve some aspect of me, they find it self-aggrandizing. But there’s a long tradition of artists using themselves. Look, I know I’m not perfect. And, who knows, maybe a part of it has to do with self-obsession. But it’s also about using this weird thing that is a public persona as raw material for creative projects.

You say I sucked at the Oscars. I was a genius at the Oscars. That was experimental tuxedo sleep art.

I still work really hard, but I like to think I'm a little smarter about at least the type of movie I'm getting into.

When I started writing after my career as an actor, I knew that that other life in the film industry would be pulled into my writing life and that people would see me not as an author but as an actor starting to write.

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.

I start movies with people that I believe in and people with visions, you know, that I believe in. And so if it doesn't kind of come together in the right way, at least I was doing it because I believed in the person and the movie.

As an actor in the classroom, you're revealing so much, and teachers are, you know, they're just critiquing like a painting or a piece of work; it's like, it's you, and it's your emotions that they're working with.

You just don't really rehearse kissing scenes, whether it's male or female.

You don't really prepare for a kissing scene.

I don't cast somebody that I think is like my younger self.

If many people love me, then I must be important.

I view filmmaking as a director's medium.

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.

I was kind of scared of failing at acting.

When I research a role it does get a little crazy and maybe even a little stupid.

I think as far as straight actors playing gay roles, "Brokeback Mountain" was a big breakthrough. I'm pretty sure when they were casting that movie that - I think the story is, like you know, 10 to 15 other actors turned it down.

It's basically the best job in the world. If you're fortunate enough - and I consider myself fortunate - you get to work with your friends and you get to work on projects that interest you.

When I read the book [The Adderall Diaries] I loved it, and I maybe had an inkling that there was a lot of good material in there. I didn't quite know at the time how to adapt it into a film, but I hoped I would figure it out one day.

We tell specific stories about ourselves to ourselves and we're all the heroes of our own lives. But you live through certain experiences with other people, and sometimes they have very different takes on what happened.

I love collaboration of all kinds, and I love the way that collaboration pulls me into directions I wouldn't go in if I was working on my own.

I have a lot of books optioned. This one sat around for a while - part of that was just because I was trying to figure it out, and I didn't realize I needed Pam [Romanowski] to figure it out - but I'm not somebody that likes to option books and then sit on them.