WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 870 - James Franco

Episode Date: December 6, 2017

At some point after James Franco became a high-profile movie star, he found himself asking, "What if you get everything you want and nothing changes?" As James explains to Marc, that led to a re-engagement with art and academics, a stint on General Hospital, an infamous hosting experience on the Oscars, and many passion projects that he willed to fruition. Only now, with his new movie The Disaster Artist, which he wrote and directed, does James realize what he was chasing and what he has in common with The Room director Tommy Wiseau. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category,

and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Lock the gate! Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers?

What the fuck buddies? What the fucking ears? What the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fuck sticks what's happening i'm mark maron this is wtf this is my podcast that i do out of a garage on a hill precariously on on uh i think what might be cinder blocks from the early 1900s just perched here waiting for something waiting for something maybe nothing will happen i'm still in my garage i'm not uh i'm not as much in the house but uh but i'm here man i'm here today on the show james franco will talk to me for a while all right i this is one of those shows where i'm rushing i'm harried uh i i'm still in makeup here. I've got stuff in my hair that makes me Sam Sylvia. I have to shoot in Pomona later this week.

Sadly, maybe I'll have some Pomona stories next week. God knows Pomona's got tales. Maybe I'll have an experience in Pomona. But as of right now, it's just moving and shooting. Moving and shooting, people. I know some of you are going to be heartbroken, but I might not ramble on as much as I usually do. Because I talked to Franco for a while, and I'm a little crunched for time.

Do you dig what I'm saying? So, like as I said, James Franco is here. Now, I guess I can, you know, I was, I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know him. And those of you who listen to this show know that we had an episode that had some James Franco on it. I was in Austin.

I was at South by Southwest, I believe. I was doing a live WTF there. I can't remember who was on. I do remember Nate Bargetzi was there. I know there's some other people. And then Franco and Harmony Corrine were promoting the film Spring spring breakers and in sort of a last minute thing charlie the dude who booked some of the stuff up there said well they're

going to come by so they did and i talked to harmony backstage and i met james franco and harmony seemed very animated very funny james was you know uh what i perceived as a bit aloof and uh and then you know i started the show and they came out uh and they did uh you know and it was difficult it was weird you know it was a live audience and i had made an assumption i had assumed and this is this is something we all do and we don't necessarily need to do i had had assumed that James Franco was some kind of, you know, pseudo-intellectual kind of affected, pompous guy. And, you know, he was doing a lot of stuff, going to a lot of schools, doing a lot of art.

And I just made assumptions before I met him. And he came out, and I thought Harmony would be fun because he was be fun because he was always fun when he was a kid on Letterman he was pleasant backstage just chatty and he kind of locked up on me and acted affected and weird and Franco I asked him some straight ahead questions but he seemed to I you know I just decided he was being a dick to me and uh you know we got to hash this out and we will hash it out but but what i realized and i'll tell him this is that i realized like the day that i interviewed him like he didn't know what he was walking into he

didn't know me he didn't know the show and and the live show was the live show and there's an audience so i'm acting like an asshole and uh busting his balls a little bit but he didn't know what he walked into and And I sort of blamed him. So we're going to straighten this out. But I certainly have no stranger to people sort of misunderstanding or deciding something about me. And I do it with other people too. Like that guy's an asshole. That guy's arrogant. Who does that guy think he is? Oh, he's too good for us, whatever. Oh, he thinks he's all this or all that and and most of the time what i find and this is just with me when people think i'm being an asshole or when people think that you know outside of acting like an asshole which i don't usually do in the way that i used to

but sometimes i'm dismissive or i don't say thank you or i i you know i don't listen properly and it's not because i'm i'm being a dick i might be being a dick, but here's what I'm doing. I'm lost in my own fucking head. I'm not paying attention to what you're saying. I'm not paying attention to what you're doing. And when you're on set, that's important to do that. People are putting makeup on you. They're doing your hair.

I mean, you don't, it's just 90% of the time, I think for me, when I'm being an asshole, it's because I'm just lost in my own head, preoccupied with myself. There's no malicious intent, but it's just rude behavior. And when you don't respond or you don't engage properly, you become sort of a blank canvas for people's assumptions because they don't know what the fuck is going on you're not even acting polite you're not even saying thank you not even acknowledging that you've heard what somebody said you're taking everybody for granted you're just moving through the world like it's your screen treating the people that wait on you places shitty so as soon as you do

that when you're that disconnected from the humanity around you on a day-to-day basis you make yourself just a uh a tabula rosa for uh for people's projections and assumptions about you you can only use that excuse so many times i'm sorry i wasn't paying attention i'm sorry i was thinking about me i'm sorry were you just are you have you been here long i'm sorry did you oh did i just eat your lunch jesus i've i've got to pay attention i've got to to engage in some basic etiquette or manners or some respect for other people i just i just thought that was my food i don't know what i was thinking i'm sorry did i just sit on you i thought you were a chair so needless to say you know entering the james franco thing you know i was i was sort of a you know a little bit anxious to make a connection to talk about things that mattered to him i was also you know uh anxious to get to know

him because i'd made assumptions before that turned out to be way off and we ended up you know jabbering for a long time like I actually like you know and you know I had to go it was one of those situations where we talked for a long time and I'm like I'd like to keep talking but I gotta I gotta go so this is me and uh James. The Disaster Artist is now playing in New York and L.A. It opens wide tomorrow, Friday, December 8th. So this is a couple of guys getting to know each other. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats.

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Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category,

and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Each other. each other i was thinking about poetry and i was going to give you i don't know i got some good books okay well i mean i was gonna i don't know what i thought like maybe maybe you read some poems you want to read some poems on here? Sure, man.

What do you mean? You played Ginsberg, you know? Right? You played him. Yeah. Are we going? Is this the thing? Sure.

I've played Ginsberg. Because for some reason, he was very important to me. Allen Ginsberg? Yeah. Did you ever meet him? I never did meet him. I got a signed book by him. He was around a bit.

I grew up in new mexico but you know he was he was in new york and like i i knew people that knew him but no i never met him did you meet him no he was already gone yeah i think he died i just remember uh not terribly long ago yeah goodwill hunting i think was dedicated to him and um burroughs i think they died around the same time did they and i think it was dedicated to him and um burroughs i think they died around the same time did they and i think it was like that year i love burroughs yeah he's hilarious he is did you ever realize that about him how funny he fucking was well in drugstore cowboy he's hilarious but like the writing like the writing their bits it took me years to realize it because i was so

looking for something else you know what i mean i was like this guy's got he's like a cabala you know like burrows it's all coming through him and then if you read parts of naked lunch they're just like shtick they're funny and i saw him like when i was my freshman year of college i saw his appearance on snl and he was doing bits from naked lunch right he just read his work on that. Right. Yeah. Funny. I'm going to do SNL next week. Really? Yeah, it'll be my fourth time. But I remember being on there.

I actually made a documentary about it. About going on SNL? Yeah. Well, my documentary, I'm not the host of the documentary. Right. It's John Malkovich. Yeah. And I was in with them it was actually a an assignment when i was at nyu to do like a documentary and just follow somebody for

seven minutes like an observational seven minutes and i was gonna follow bill hater right and just make a seven minute doc and then lauren i guess liked me and he gave me all access to everything and i was like well i'm I'm not going to waste this. I'm going to make a feature. And I went, and it's like, it's the only SNL doc where you get to see what happens every step of the week. And you followed Malkovich. Malkovich and the whole, you know, all the writers. Sure, sure.

Yeah, everyone. How long ago was that? Seven years ago, I think. Where's that at? Where can you see that? It was on Hulu ago i think where's that at where can you see that it was on hulu i think it's still on hulu it took a while to like get it released just because um of all the rights and whatever else and because i was looking at this stuff like there's some movies that you made that i was like wait where did i how'd i miss that too many

because there's too many that's why how'd i miss that oh it's only seven minutes long there's gotta be another no no this one's a feature uh actually you know what happened with that it was it was i was gonna be put out by um um adam yowk's company the beastie boy yeah he passed and he passed away oh um such a great dude seemed like a nice guy and then it took a while to find another place but like I didn't realize that you did the Faulkner novel too As I Lay Dying

I doubled down on Faulkner you'd think one would be enough I read those books for the first time in high school cause I my dad introduced me to As I Lay Dying. I got in a lot of trouble in high school. We can go into that if you want.

But not reading Faulkner. No. And then after I got arrested enough times, it was like, all right, I guess I can't go out with my friends anymore. And so I would spend the weekends at home reading Faulkner as I lay down. It's all their fault, right?

It's all their fault. With the Cliff Notes. Oh, Cliff Notes. And it was amazing for me. You know, like that book and Sound and the Fury. When we did the movie, I realized it'll be easier. As I Lay Dying.

Or for both. At first I did As I Lay Dying. You did the Sound and the Fury? Yeah. I had no idea. Oh, yeah, you got to check it out. Yeah. Where do you see that one?

It's online, isn't it? Is it? Yeah, I think you can get it on iTunes. I think, yeah. I do have to watch it. Yeah. I'm just talking about the book, and now you went and shot it. Now, okay, so as a guy,

you know, you're doing, your career's going well and you're like, you know, and like, I'm just going to challenge myself with this, with those books, those impossible books. Yeah, exactly. But what was the impetus?

That was very, well, I'll tell you. Let's see here. Well, first I got, first I want to, we're going to get to this. But I think the beginning of your and my story is Austin. Because I've been listening to your show nonstop for the past month. Yeah, I was a little off. I was hard on you afterwards. Well, I want to break it down because I'm still a little confused.

So we both can kind of stay away. I think I know what happened. Okay. So I just listened to Harmony's interview from years ago. Oh, yeah, in New York. Yeah. Yeah, which is great. And you kind of brought it up there a little bit.

So this is what I remember happening. So I was there for Spring Breakers in Austin at South by Southwest. Right. I was just doing interviews all day right i admit that i because i don't come you know i i i work with seth rogan and judd yeah but like i don't know the comedy world that well you don't know me so i didn't know who you are i had no idea what you were walking yeah so they're like all right we're going to this little theater yeah you guys are gonna you know this guy mark will interview, right. And there'd be a group of us. I don't even remember who was with Harmony Eye,

but there were a couple other guys on stage. Well, yeah, there was a, when I did the live WTFs, there was usually like four or five comics. I think Nate Bargetts, he was there, and a couple other ones. And then you guys just walk in because the guy who runs the festival had got it.

You know, he had cooked me up. And in retrospect, I realized, you walk out in front of a live audience with Harmony and me, who's being acerbic because walk out in front of a live audience yeah with harmony and me this like who's being absurd acerbic because i'm in front of a live audience and i'm kind of like you know i'm i don't know if i was dickish but there was no other way for you to behave you know like i felt like well what's he like he's gotta be a dick to me but like what you don't know me and that's a live situation and i'm sitting there like you know hammering on you what else are you gonna do you can detach a little bit right okay so you so you weren't your normal self or you're not

it's not this this mark well no because i there's an audience to service yeah right so like when you do this you you go deep right yeah we just talk it's one-on-one and you know you ain't gonna get the deep stuff if you're like no you can't do it in front of it yeah and you can't do it in front of that mode no because that was the mode that i thought because like i've been to you know i went i went back to school i've i've i've listened to a lot of guest lecturers and you know authors talking about their work yeah and it's always or directors or whatever it's always such a bummer when you get the you know the well my work speaks for itself i don't know right and you just they don't answer it i mean it must be a bummer when you get the, you know, the, well, my work speaks for itself. I don't know.

Right. And you just, they don't answer it. I mean, it must be a bummer. You're an interviewer. It must be the worst if somebody's just like, they don't want to do the interview. They're just sort of doing it to sell their thing or something, but they're not giving you anything. Yeah.

I don't do too many of those. And usually I'll hammer, like I had Paul Thomas Anderson in here. Yeah. I heard that one. Yeah. That just went movie for movie. I was like, fuck this. Yeah. You know, you know like what what is that and he was good i didn't realize he was such a goofy fun guy so like you know i think you got more out of him than anybody

probably ever has yeah i but like i thought because he's a little bit like i i used to um do interviews for uh like playboy and different outlets and i know him a little bit and i and he's the one i'd him and cormac mccarthy yeah and i talked to him yeah did you meet him well you i've talked to him on the phone uh-huh did you did you adapt to one of his too didn't you yeah child of god yeah and i remember asking him when we did child of god i got on the phone he was like my favorite writer and i was like living writer and i was like all right writer. Yeah. And I was like, living writer. And I was like, all right. So this is a book about a necrophiliac that's running around the woods murdering people so they can have sleep with them.

And so people are probably going to ask me why I made this movie. So I'll just ask you, Cormac, like, why did you write that? Why did you write the book? And this is his answer. Yeah. I don't know, James. Probably some dumbass reason. Like that.

Like that. You know what I mean? It's like, it's a great story, but I'm not, you know, it doesn't give me much. And so when I was on stage with you, I was trying to give you answers. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I don't know if you have that on record somewhere, that interview, but like- We played it, yeah.

I remember you were asking me about Freaks and Geeks. Yeah. This is what I remember. Yeah. And then you can tell me what- And you were asking me about Freaks and Geeks, and I was trying to give you a- Right. Somewhat informative answer that I like improvised, you know,

but like then would improvise off camera. Like, yeah. And the other actors were like not into it and it wasn't helpful. And I said, this is what I remember. I said, uh,

yeah, I took myself too seriously then. And then you jumped in and said, it's a good line. And my reaction probably shows that you were right you're like what i say then yeah you're like oh as opposed to now or something like that and boom i was just like in my in my mind i was like yeah fuck this dude i'm trying to give him a good answer and he's gonna what's he doing like a shot at you yeah yeah i was like, well, all right, no more good answers for you, motherfucker.

Like that's, and then, and I remember you saying, well, don't, don't shut down on me. Right. But there wasn't that much more to the interview. I remember. No, no, no. It wasn't. It wasn't. I, I, and so I later heard like you were kind of pissed about it.

And so, but, but i was thinking about it today you know yeah i was coming in well yeah but like i i wasn't worried about it but i i realized my part in it was you know what did i expect you like i realized i think just this morning that like he had no idea what he's walking into and he didn't know who i was yeah and then harmony who's like chipper and funny offstage immediately turns into a weirdo the second he's on stage yeah like just shuts down completely yeah gives me nothing and then you you know kind like i just lumped you two together as like what is the point of this they're just gonna they're gonna like stonewall me with like uh

uh some sort of artistic cockiness. Weird, because I thought I was giving you answers. Yeah, I know. Look, I'm not a perfect person. Okay. Neither am I. It was a difficult situation. I'm sorry I shut down.

Oh, no. I am sorry that I was a dick. That's so funny, though, when you talk about Harm because he's i think he's just one of the most incredible you know directors oh definitely and he's a tricky dude you know because like he's got a lot in there and he's he's got a lot of past and you know i think there's a lot he doesn't like to talk about so like he kind of moves around things you know when you talk to him right yeah and there's such an interesting thing my new thing that i'm interested in is um where people are sort of confident in performance and different sort of performance spaces

and there's this new amazing documentary out called um jim and and. I saw it, yeah. Where Jim Carrey, you know, it's footage from when Jim Carrey played Andy Kaufman on Man on the Moon, but then a recent interview, right? Yeah. Well, they were backstage making a documentary of him being Andy on the set of Man

on the Moon. And he goes so far into it, Jim's gone. Well, his premise was that he was a vessel, and he went on the beach and he goes so far into it jim's gone well he said well his premise was that you know he was a vessel and you know he went on the beach and he was occupied by andy right yeah but then milo's for you see milo's foreman the great milo's foreman right i mean kook is just trying to deal with it one of my favorite movies ever he did amadeus too yeah oh my god yeah yeah great and larry flint which was great great and um and there there he is cowed like he can't even talk to his actor really, you know what I mean? He and he's calling Jim up saying Jim

He's asking Tony Clifton Yeah like well we can we can fire Andy and and Tony Clifton and I can get Jim back and he can maybe do a Good impression of those guys. Is that what you want, Milos? And he's like, oh, no. But what was your feeling in that?

So this is what you're thinking about, how you occupy different performance spaces. What was your reaction to that film? As an actor, watching that. That it was amazing. Jim Carrey is such an you know he's his thing and when he does it it's miraculous and the way they

and it's also the documentary is also a story of Andy's life and Jim's life and you see and Jim the way he talks about his performance persona is like he calls it Jekyll and Hyde except it's a benign Hyde right another person takes over so and he's performance persona is like he calls it jekyll and hyde except it's a benign hide right right

another person takes over so and he's i guess he learned that from stand-up like he after a while he's like no plan right i'm just gonna go out there right and let this hide character take over and just figure it out on stage yeah there's something i kind of love about that but it's also a little crazy, I think. But didn't you watch it as an actor and think like, oh, these poor people on this set. Well, I think about that sort of, yeah, it's an amazing exercise and that documentary is amazing. But I think when they were making Man on the Moon, it feels a little like it wasn't, after a it was diminishing returns you know what i mean like yeah um my guess is when um daniel day lewis is playing you know lincoln yeah yes spielberg has

to go over and say mr president right but he can but he's not going to be an asshole yeah it's not like he's gonna go what what you want he's not gonna be steven asshole. Yeah, it's not like... He's going to go, what? What do you want? He's not going to be talking about... Stephen, I can only speak about the 14th Amendment. Like, you know what I mean? It's like you can talk to him about the mission at hand. Sure. And that there's still an inkling of Daniel Day-Lewis's consciousness behind the facade of Lincoln.

But you immerse yourself in a similar way but when you say you know how people occupy spaces are you talking about because it seems to me that over in the more experimental modes of of what you've done creatively yeah i mean you've you've you've done that i mean you've you've experimented with putting yourself in spaces some of them commercial spaces some of them you know covered in you know gold leaf some of them that was not my idea that was marina abramovich's idea some of them that was bizarre and absurd i watched that i i i'm like i don't know what it meant she put they put honey on me and gold leaf it was you but you you showed up for it you were that was you were willing that

was part of it that was part of a lot of those things. Yeah. The showing up and putting myself into different places. And I actually, that idea that I was just talking about with Jim Carrey of figuring it out on stage or figuring it out in front of camera. Yeah. That's something that this performance artist that I worked with and all around around artist um paul mccarthy do you know that dude i don't he does a lot of um he's sort of like do you know mike kelly do you know that guy sure sure he was in that crowd of this la artist yeah yeah my girlfriend's a painter okay she'll know him yeah like he's one of the

most he's one of the biggest la artists i think you almost bought one of her paintings once you liked it but it was sold that's oh really that's the story that's the story i heard okay all right so so this guy mccarthy he i did a project with him that was sort of and a bunch of other artists but it was inspired by uh rebel without a cause okay and the way long ago uh probably about six years ago now seven years ago and um he talks about it that way. Like when he does his performances, it's sort of like, he's like,

you work it out in front of the camera. And his things are like, he'll take a movie like Rebels Out of Cause and the way he describes it, he's like, and then we fuck it up. Or he'll take Snow White and then fuck it up.

And it just becomes this weird thing with lots of like um fluids and like ketchup and mayonnaise as yeah to stand in for like body fluids and stuff like that and and anyway it's a certain kind of way of working and so part of my thing i think in hindsight was was, oh, I'll show up. I'll put myself, I'll insert myself into this thing. So when I did General Hospital, right?

I, that came out of a conversation with an artist friend of mine, Carter. He wanted me to do his weird art film where I was going to play a character. Carter? Yeah. It's like Madonna. I like Carter.

Just Carter? Yeah, Carter. I knew a guy named Carter who was an artist in New York. Oh. Carter Castera? No. No, it's just Carter.

Okay. Yeah, yeah. All right. Yeah, I don't know his last name. Okay, yeah. And I was going to play a character that had been on a soap opera but had been fired because he had a mental breakdown. Okay.

And we were just walking on the streets of New York and we're like, oh yeah, what if you were actually on a soap opera? And I like oh and i was in that mode it was like oh yeah that'd be cool and you could do it like you knew that like if you wanted to do it they'd write oh they were excited they were really excited yeah they were like uh general hustle was like uh yeah you can come on Do you want to write your own character? What do you want to play? You can do anything you want. And I said,

no, I want the full soap opera makeover. I don't want to write anything. I want you guys to write it. All I want is my character to be an artist. I want him to be crazy. Okay. And they came up with the idea that the character would be named franco

and it was awesome because it was this cliche version of an artist you know like started with the street art and then now he's like doing installations but his but he's secretly a murderer you know and the murder is secretly in the art and all this stuff and it was so hokey on one level but because it was on a soap opera and i clearly didn't belong there like the move the tacit understanding you know of an actor's trajectory is like you start in a soap opera and move up to movies yeah and here i was movies i was like doing 127 hours around that time yeah and then i'm going to a soap opera so already i was like an imposter but then they called the character franco so it was like you couldn't help but not be pulled out of it. It was like already meta.

You know what I mean? Right, yeah. Were you trying to undermine it? I think just my presence was undermining it. And then I went on. It taught me a lot. I went on and I was like... Didn't you do like 30 of them?

Yeah, but I'll tell you how that went down. I went on and before I went, I was like, am I going to have to do soap opera acting? And it was a great lesson where it was like, no. You as an actor in film and television and theater, you are so tempered by everything around you. It was such a great lesson yeah and that's why you can see great actors that are awesome in one movie and in another movie you're like what the heck

there's there's still the great actors i know i mean some some happen some change but other times it's just like what a what a weird yeah you know yeah disparity between those levels of performances and i i believe a lot of it has to do with who you're working with what the material is how it all comes out because it is such a collaborative medium and and and the soap opera thing though like but so that's one of those things so i went in there and it was like you say those lines yeah they have to shoot you know so they have five episodes a week. They have a certain budget. It's just plain easier to have the two characters sit on a couch and talk and say, you know, just about this issue again and again and again.

You know, you can't have car chases and whatnot. You have to have them sit in the same place and have them talk for 10 minutes. For economical reasons. Yeah. And all the, like you go in a soap opera set, you've got those sets and all the lights

are already on a grid. Yeah. So all they have to do is like, okay, three, five, 39,

da, da, da. And then you've got four cameras. Yeah. So it's not just one take per setup like you do on your show or you know you do different setups like glow i'm sure they take time to light it and everything oh yeah this is not just one

take per setup this is one take per scene like you just learn the scene do it once good check moving on yeah done like that yeah so the way i did uh all those episodes they called them they were so excited to have me yeah that they would just block all of my scenes on on fridays right they called them franco fridays and i was in new york at the time in school he had nyu i would land on friday at like 10 a.m go there i'd shoot from 11 to about 2 a.m yeah i was doing and now you have you have uh appreciation for this because of your show yeah i was doing 80 to 90 pages a day oh my god that's like a full feature length film script that's in a day with all you in a day oh my god and uh i would i had it's how I met one of my assistants, Samantha.

She was working on the show and she and I would just read the scene and I'd get it down. Okay, ready? And we'd go and do the thing. One take, boom, next. And just like that all day on Fridays. So on three consecutive Fridays, we logged 21 episodes worth of my character's material. So they just had that to have. So, but in your mind,

there was a tongue in cheekness to it, but once you got, you followed through with it, it became, it was a sort of experiment in that idea of people occupying different spaces, but it seems like as an actor that it was also challenging. It, yeah, it had its own challenges for sure it was um but i didn't have to act like a soap opera actor what my point was like i just say those lines and you lit in a certain way and they they take on the

makeup they would always say like yeah james you got to put on that makeup or it's going to be you know nixon in the you, the debates or whatever. You know what I mean? Yeah. The Kennedy debate. Yeah, exactly. And so they cake on the makeup and you look a certain way and you're saying these lines and it's, you know, blocked the way it is. And you just start coming off like a quote unquote soap opera actor.

You know what I mean? It's just a particular thing. But the context is too big. It's too instilled. It's like the context is you're not bigger than the context right although in a way i was because then when it started coming out yeah people started reviewing and and so general hospital was excited because all of a sudden yeah they're getting wow all the all these cool places salon or whatever slater's talking about general hospital like yeah this kind of meta weird thing and then what was so cool about

um the soap opera format is they have to churn out the material so quickly yeah that then they could start writing in response to the critics or the phenomenon that was going on. And so it became even more meta. And then my mom, who's a children's book author, had been taking acting lessons in Palo Alto. She had an improv group called Suburban Squirrel. And I had mentioned it to the writers and they're like, well, we should get her on to play your real mom.

So my real mom came on and acted with me but that was so weird because like she was playing my mom she should know how to do that it was like she in the character is like a former hippie and right um and she just started playing it so weird like she was like talking to me like I don't know just drawing out her words like hi like oh what are you doing I'm like mom why are you why are you talking like like I was just trying to help her like as a fellow actor like mom yeah you should just relax and kind of be yourself it'll be better yeah and I think she learned I've put her in things since and she learned from that. But anyway, that was there. Then the funky thing about that was after a while, I was like, all right, I'm done. And actually the producer, like daytime, if you didn't know, is sort of fading.

And so they got rid of some of the producers that I'd been working with. And so I just stopped going on. And so they had another guy play my character but he's still called Franco yeah and then they kept bringing my mom back to play this new Franco's mom and what had once been a good time yeah but what once had been meta yeah then soap opera fans would just read it as their show and I now still run into people in the you know usually older women in the airport yeah oh i loved you on general hospital i don't like the new franco as much as and and they just accept it yeah yeah that's hilarious yeah um and then and then finally the whole soap opera saga ended with this weird art thing. Yeah.

Where I got Mocha here in Los Angeles. We did a show at Mocha at the Pacific Design Center space that was an episode of General Hospital. But it was as if my character, was having the art show there. And then his art pieces were sets where he had interacted with this other character, Jason, because he was obsessed with Jason. Yeah. But that it was also kind of a show and performance at MoCA,

and we had like soap opera fans come and also museum patrons come and watch the filming of this thing that was going to be an episode, was an episode on ABC. It aired, was nominated for Emmys. But then I also had my own camera crew filming the whole thing that turned into this movie called, and when I say it, everyone's going to be like, oh yeah, that's so James. That's the ultimate James Franco thing. It's called Franco-phrenia

or the subtitle is don't shoot. I know where the baby is because it's a line that my character says. But then we eventually aired that on Comedy Central when I did my roast. So you see a set, like you understood the idea, you know, as a creative person, as an artist artist that you have a public persona and it's big right yeah so you're like you know like

well that's something that's malleable like i can fuck with that right okay so that so that that's a that is an awareness that that's important in in the that, you know, your consciousness of it kind of gets you a little slack, you know, for, you know, you can't be a full dick if you knew you were fucking with people with your own persona. What you're talking about also goes back to the Freaks and Geeks days where when I was on Freaks and Geeks, I had been taught like by an acting teacher. Like, don't let your public don't don't put too much of yourself out there. Don't do talk shows. Don't do shows like this one that we're on. Like if people get to know you too much, then you won't be able to disappear into the characters.

Right. And so. Yeah. John C. Riley, did you listen to that one? He came in here. It's like,

I don't want to talk about it. I don't like doing this. I don't like talking about myself. I need to manage my, you know, I don't want to blow my mystique, whatever it is. And then we ended up talking, like we ended up talking about clowns for 20 minutes and he was wide open you know but like he was aware of it right that as an actor the one you know the one card you have that you could play is that people don't know me that well i mean i took

it too far like you know judd and paul feig on Freaks and Geeks were like, these kids are, you know, one of our leads. He doesn't want to do any press. Like, who's this little jerk? You know what I mean? Like, and then I, and so I was trying to manage my public persona in that way. From the beginning, it seems. Yeah. And then later it was like, oh like oh okay i can't really control this

thing like people aren't writing about me like i'm the coolest guy ever like i just can't control it you know so it was like all right i might as well have fun with it but they're not writing about you as the coolest guy ever they're they're writing of about you sort of like what's what what's up with this fucking guy yeah like, like, oh, another stupid James Dean wannabe? Like, screw this kid. Well, you kind of, you know, you got stuck in that because of the movie. I mean, you had to play James Dean and you locked into it. Actually, that wasn't a problem.

After James Dean, that wasn't a problem. Like, everybody around me said, don't play James Dean. Like, you're going to be scrutinized and you'll be typecast from then on. That wasn't a problem. Right. Everybody around me said, don't play James Dean. You're going to be scrutinized and you'll be typecast from then on. That actually wasn't a problem after I played James Dean. Yeah. It was just before when I was actually doing the Jim Carrey off-camera James Dean shit. That's when it was a problem. You did that on that set?

Yeah, but not to the not to the carry extent at least part of that deep dive into andy kaufman and tony clifton is that avoidance of self avoiding running from fear and pain sure absolutely and but also like to have a uh uh like in in like this is a good question for you because you don't seem to you know you don't seem untethered you don't seem that they're that you're lacking self but i i had to work i mean i had a i had to work on it man yeah i mean what we're talking about the period we're talking about was a was a search and i did i which period james dean uh i guess all of it but like like the last 10 years let's say seven to ten years were you going to nine colleges yeah and you're you're painting yeah because i had after james dean i learned on that movie like

everybody everybody around me said don't do it don't do it my agents everyone said don't do it don't do it yeah my only person that said do it was my teacher the acting teacher robert carnegie yeah yeah because i realized oh he was you know a james dean friend he was like 50 or 60 and he was still obsessed with james dean like he's he's still dressed like james dean and so it was almost like so you listen to that guy yeah it was almost like he was experiencing yeah it threw me right but it worked like he knew more about james dean than anyone and so it it really worked and it paid off i you know i got some recognition for james dean but did you like but did was that the first when did you do that what what year was that that's after 2001 okay it was after freaks

and geeks okay so that it was your first movie uh my first like lead role right yeah yeah and it's like this this this like you know mythical actor who is known for this you know very specific method and and yeah i mean i did yeah i did some things some that were silly and some that were i don't know whatever i don't know it's hard to go back and be like well because i'm happy with the performance i mean like you know i got a great response from i remember sean penn you know yeah like all my heroes were coming around they're like man i just showed i just showed j, I showed Rebel to my kids. And then I just, and I showed your movie and I'm like, look, same guy. Like that, you know, so it was like, wow, it really paid off.

Yeah. Yeah. But I did go to extremes. I started smoking. I didn't talk to friends or family for four months. Yeah. I, you know, I isolated, I watched his movies all movies all day every day read all the biographies was that was that because of your training were you trained to do it that way or is that just the

way you thought to do it that's what the teacher told me to do james dean the james d worshiper yeah and it worked and so then after that movie i was like well that's how you do it that's how you do everything yeah but then i did a series of movies where i was doing this prep eight months of prep like whatever learning how i ride a horse like this was like okay there's a battle on horseback he's charges down the hill and you know some epic like braveheart battle and yeah and so i was like I got to learn how to ride a horse. And then also thinking naively, like, oh,

I'll do all my own stunts. Yeah. Not thinking like, oh, as the lead, they're not going to let you do your own stunts. Cause if you get injured, the movie's over,

dude. Yeah. And actually I did get injured in the movie, like got stalled six months, but learning how to ride a horse. And then on my own dime, we're talking hundreds of thousand dollars every day going to griffith park riding these horses that were movie horses right retired movie horses no still active

like they were like one of them were two of them were zorro's horse from the antonio barrandez thing like so i'm riding zorro's horses and stuff like that and getting after eight months i got good yeah i could i could i could stand on the horse's back as it galloped no kidding yeah that kind of stuff and and then getting to you know ireland and the director saying um here's the new script and i'm looking through for the horse battles and it's like instead of the epic horse battle it's like uh six men sneak on foot through the woods and it's just like no you know that's just like a small you know what a clear example of how like i didn't know how to collaborate or you know build a character with the director right and so also what do you get how do you

know anything about rewrites that can happen the day of i mean i had to learn the hard way yeah but now you can ride a horse yeah well i've got that great video yeah yeah then my friend shot on like a little camcorder but if you needed to jump on a horse you could do it yeah i can do it i have never used it but how do you see this as being the beginning of this arc of you kind of like blowing open your sense of self into all these different directions? Yeah. So after a while, I was like, this is really disappointing. Like, not only like, was I doing movies that I shouldn't have been doing? For what?

Because they were what? doing movies that I shouldn't have been doing. For what? Because they were what? Well, I gave too much credit to the teacher because he had said, do James Dean when everyone else said no. So I was like, he's got the answer. Yeah.

So I gave him too much weight. Yeah. I didn't know. Oh, you stayed with the guy, the teacher. He kept taking his advice. It was like, I went to that. What's his name? I went to that school for eight years.

It was also partly, you know, I needed an artistic father. Yeah. Like when I told my parents I was going to drop out of UCLA. Yeah. They were like, well, then you got to support yourself. It was probably a great thing that they did that. Yeah.

Because then I went and worked at McDonald's and it was like, I'm working drive-thru. It's like, you better work hard at the acting. Did you choose McDonald's just for the- That was all I could get. I would go, I didn't have a car because I crashed my car inthru. It's like, you better work hard at the acting. Did you choose McDonald's just for the- That was all I could get. I would go, I didn't have a car because I crashed my car in high school and had a suspended license. Yeah.

So I had to get a job within walking distance of my Sherman Oaks apartment. I was sleeping on the couch. And- So McDonald's. And then I went to all the restaurants, but I was just this 18-year-old schlubby kid. I had very little work experience.

All the other actors had all the good waiting jobs. And somebody in my life was like, well, are you too good to work at McDonald's? I was like, no, I guess not. You like taking those challenges, don't you? I went there. They hired me right away. Go figure. They were happy to have you.

Yeah. But it made me work really hard and so then when i went to the school and this guy carnegie was like yeah come here you don't you know if you can't afford the monthly payments just pay me what you can and write it write down what you owe me when if you make it then pay me back i think he maybe even said when you make it like he had that i think he maybe even said when you make it like he had that much belief he's like yeah sometimes you need to take a chance on yourself and he was the only one in my life that said that and it was like it was really how'd you find that

valuable yeah i was i was the only it was the first acting school i ever visited did you did he have other students that you knew or jim carey well i don't know how long jim carey went there but i think when earth he was doing earth girls are easy or something because jeff goldblum was a teacher there oh okay and uh so i think jeff like had jim go there like he probably went to like one class or something but i stay there too long like with eight years yeah it's like get out of the net i was doing freaks and geeks with judd and you'd think like you could just lean on this yeah i didn't know it was my first real job i didn't know i was working with the best of the best right right and i was i was still going to act it was like yeah uh okay after work today i'm going to acting

class it's just like you know what i mean but because you thought you had to work you wanted to keep doing the work but like what was the method he had what was his his angle it was based in meisner and it was it basically like the best thing i got out of there was how to relax and be be present right and and when he took me through the preparation for James Dean yeah that's something I always kept and ironically the character I just you know in the movie that I played in the movie that's coming out now the disaster is Tommy Wiseau yeah that dude was a huge fan of James Dean he's not anything like James Dean you know what I mean on the outside he's like part pirate part vampire part yeah Alice Cooper roadie or something but um he's aiming for James Dean and I found it really

ironically satisfying that I prepared to play Tommy Wiseau the same way that I did to play James Dean. Do you prepare the same way for all roles from that, from learning from doing the James Dean? I mean, what was it that he taught you to do that is a regular part of your process? The general thing is always there. Like, basically for every character, you got to get the insides.ides you gotta figure out the insides that's the key some characters are like the behavior the outer behavior the outer look yeah is closer to me and i don't have to do that much work on it like it wouldn't like when i'm doing this this is the

end you know we're all playing yourself exaggerated versions of ourselves it wouldn't serve me to throw on a british accent or you know what i mean it's like but like let's say i do need to figure out still the inner life of that character the amplified views in that context right right so i figured out like they it's funny about that one in particular like they they did this is the end yeah they they had a tricky thing where it's funny it was great yeah i think that movie is just incredible yeah but they in the first script they had they had to figure out versions of each of us that would sort of emphasize you know a few aspects of our personalities and exaggerate them yeah but then also find a way to fit those into this overall overarching kind of arc right and originally they had me we it was

weird it was like i was my character was like really materialistic and like all about his gucci clothes because i was modeling for gu at the time. You were in real life? At that time, yeah. And I was like, but they were, but to Seth and Evan's credit, they were like, they met with each of us and they're like, tell us, you know, what you think would make this better.

And I was like, I want, this basically, I feel like is, at least for my character, the unofficial sequel to Pineapple Express. And what was the key to Pineapple Express? For at least for my character, the unofficial sequel to Pineapple Express. And what was the key to Pineapple Express? For Saul Silver, my character, he wants a friend. It's a love story. That's why it's called a bromance. You know, he wants a friend.

And that emotional grounding, which is also something that Judd taught us, and what revolutionized comedies, is having that emotional underpinning the need yes yeah and to make that real yeah as big as the jokes are to make that emotional thing real and tether that you know yeah make that that's the character's tether yeah and in pineapple i just you know he just wanted a friend yeah you know yeah and that was the same thing in This is the End. And I was like, no, I want to, you know, my character needs Seth.

Like, if we're coming, if this is the end, what does my character want? He wants to survive with Seth or he wants to save Seth. And that's what I do at the end, right? I sacrifice myself for Seth, but then I can't get over my grudge with Danny McBride, and so I don't get to go to heaven. I think that they... I still tease them about it. I think they lost at least like 10 million at the box office

because I wasn't in heaven. Like they should have at least put me and Danny in purgatory or something like that. Together? At the end, yeah. Oh, God. But that's what I do with every character. But with a James Dean character or a Tommy Wiseau character,

those are characters that are based on real people. But not only that, they're public figures. Like people know how they sounded. They know what they looked like. They know how they looked, right? More Dean. Yeah, but Tommyy like the super fans like tommy's very specific yeah so that became part of that character but but also there's

like you know the one thing that you you know that i couldn't wrap my brain around like because i watch a movie you know and it's it's not it's not a comedy the disaster artist no no well we didn't that was i mean our approach always i mean i had seth rogan uh produce it yeah because i had a lot of i wanted him to take out take me out of the artsy literary indie world of falkner and mccarthy right i was like look i did all those movies those dramatic movies after james dean and i and i was like not not happy not satisfied went into a depression because it was like and it was even it was a depression that was compounded by the fact that on the surface I'm in these spider-man films and stuff and I like the spider-man films but

but that aside it was like you should be happy dude yeah look at this you got this career you're supporting yourself on your acting and everything yeah and i was depressed and so i couldn't complain to anybody about it because it'd be like oh when you get to play you know you have to play spider-man another sequel yeah oh you have to make all that money when you know and i couldn't talk to anybody about it but i was deeply unsatisfied with my work and the way i was doing it and so one of my and i searched i was like how do I get out of this? I did everything. I did charity work.

I worked with the kids in the hospitals. Friends were like, come to my church. I tried that. I did everything. And also the art. Yeah. No, one of the things I found was, oh, I can go back to school.

And UCLA had this policy where like, once you were admitted, you could go back at any age. And I went and, so I started at UCLA Extension. And then after a while, they're like, no, you can re-enroll as a student. So I went back at like age 26, 27 and was a student at UCLA. And then that sort of attitude of humility and surrender,

I think did something to me and the energy that I was putting out and I ran into Judd at the Austin Film Festival he had just done 40 Year Old Virgin he was like finally like people don't remember like there was a time when Judd's things were not landing they were getting canceled undeclared in Freaks and geeks he's like oh he was in a new place he's like i have my hit finally finally and he's like come i don't know why you left the comedy world james come back come back and i was like i'm ready like i hit bottom i'm ready and he's like seth and seth had kind of just been sort of a writer for five years or so judd kept him afloat he had pulled him out of high school and he was like you gotta take care god i i gotta do something i can't let this kid sink and and he

was finally coming back and and he's like i'm gonna do this movie knocked up with with seth i hope i think it's gonna do good for him and then you two should do a movie and so so the same time i was going back to school i then did pineapple express and then that same year i also did milk with two of my heroes um sean fan sant and sean penn that was great you're great in that it's a great movie yeah thanks and so that year was like a huge transition year for me and i and i learned and what i was maybe trying to say on your show in austin was like it was a huge lesson for me like judd and seth have been there at every transition period this latest movie is a is one too where i learned

on pineapple like oh you can trust the people you work with right the director so so you're saying that throughout the course even though you like the spider-man movies you were working a lot you did a lot of movies, good and bad. You did. And you were in your mind, right? Yeah. We don't have to mention them, but like, but you were completely unsatisfied, went into the darkness, couldn't understand it.

I know that feeling. Like if you're not wired to, it's like some people just aren't like happy. Like, like, you know what I mean? Some people aren't innately working towards happiness, right? Yeah. You're working towards what's the thing, but I think you can, that's a,

that's one of the fascinating things that for me, when I get more and more into the, uh, comedy world, cause I like in my movie, the disaster artist, we have amazing comics and dramatic actors, a lot of them in there bob owen kirk and cranston but also like you know paul sheer and jason yeah uh yeah and then you had some people talking about

the the room but that was those were brief yeah paul sheer right yeah uh yeah a lot of and who was it was melanie griffith yeah yeah yeah yeah the acting teacher yeah and judd his cameo was great oh man because because you like there's i've known judd for a while not as long as you but i'm like you kind of know that's got to be in there somewhere what whatever came out well seth rogan said to me who know who has worked closely with Judd for many, many years. He's like, yeah, I've seen that look in Judd's eye, you know, when he's about to like lower it, lower the boom on somebody. Like, and it was,

that was an important thing to me, for me too, to have Judd in that role because- It's a great scene. It's kind of brutal. Yeah, because he, Judd was, role because it's a great scene it's kind of brutal yeah because he Judd was I didn't know it but Judd was an artistic father for me yeah I thought you know thinking about this movie and actually listening to your interview with Judd which is amazing you guys are you guys are geeking out on being comedy nerds right before there were there were comedy nerds. And when you were kids, just in your rooms, just surviving by watching comedy, right?

Yeah, yeah. And I was like thinking like, what's my thing? I didn't watch comics like that, but I did in high school kind of get into James Dean and Marlon Brando and- And arrested. And, well, yeah. So after, sort of at that same time but also after i

i kind of cleaned up and stopped doing all that gus van sant's like sure drugstore cowboy my own private idaho like those were movies that started i started watching in a new way and started understanding at least intuitively like oh there, there's people behind this. There's artists behind this. Sure, making decisions. It's not just the actors like, you know, coming up with it on the spot. It's like, there's all this,

there's a director doing this artistic stuff. Right, right. And so that was sort of my thing. And so then I, and then when I went to acting school with Carnegie he obviously was into James Dean and so like I thought you know from an early age like oh I'll become a dramatic actor but then I got on Freaks and Geeks and like my trajectory I kind of got pulled in this other thing and when you're 2021 it's still a formative time in your life, in your brain.

Casey Affleck's like, yeah, your brain, you know, is still forming. And they're like, yeah, I remember that. And so I kind of got pulled off that trajectory. And this whole other thing opened up in my repertoire, I guess. Yeah, but, you know, it like it's weird because like people judge you in a certain way but without really thinking like you know maybe you were just actively interested in learning and and figuring out a new avenue i was and and that's what i needed at the time and i and i and i look back on it and i'm like because now i'm all about, I'm sort of like, at least, I don't know if it's fully realized in Jim Carrey or not.

I don't know the guy. But at least he was paying lip service to a lot of stuff that was profound. Like, he was saying stuff in that documentary, like, and then you get everything you dreamed about and you realize it didn't fulfill you. You know, that was like words out of my, I was like, Jim, you realize it didn't fulfill you. You know, I, that was like words out of my, I was like, Jim, you pulled the words out of my mouth. And, and, and so at that time, when I went back to school, it was a little bit of like, oh, this feels good. It's an alternative. Cause I was making my my career everything that was my spiritual salvation was like career any career is going to have its ebbs and flows anything right and and so when it

was my lows i realized oh i'm going through a depression like you know what i mean like I then would feel low right and so school was sort of a distraction for that yeah I also grew a little bit I learned how to collaborate yeah and you read some good books and you know yeah and I grew I grew as a creative person and I learned how to direct and when I went I went to NYU and as for directing like after UCLA I got my degree and and um it was like this is great oh and I can go to grad school yeah and like I only have to study exactly what I want to study I don't have to do all these GE classes astronomy or whatever uh and I was oh, let me do that. And then, oh, if I'm going to take this time and really study and not work as much, then I better, why don't I just throw myself into it? Why don't I go to multiple schools? And then it was like, oh, I got accepted to all of them?

Like, I'll go to all of them. I'll go to film school and writing school. And then at the writing schools, all, you know, most novelists teach because it doesn't pay. One of my best friends, Sam Lipsight, he's a teacher at Columbia. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't have him, but he was a teacher there when I was there. He's great.

I was at Columbia. And Gary Steingart, he was my main guy there. And so I was like, oh, i can have my heroes as my teachers that's like akin to being directed by yeah scorsese or something and i was like give me more give me more give me more and then when i got out of film school it was a film school was an awesome experience for me yeah i got in my shorts but in my shorts i got short films i got i got to make a movie about snl yeah right yeah i had malcolm and made a feature of it uh i had michael shannon i had uh charles dance who's like the king in uh game of thrones oh yeah tyrian

lannister and and uh i got got to work with one of my heroes, Frank Bedard, the poet. And I adapted one of his poems into a thing, Herbert White. And so when I got out of NYU, I thought, all right, I've been in the biggest movies around. I've been in the Spider-Man movies.

I've been in Oscar-winning movies like Milk. What do I want to make? Now I get to choose. What do I want to make? Now I get to choose. What do I want to make? And I thought, and then I had just read this oral biography of Sean Penn, and I guess at one point

he had thought about adapting As I Lay Dying into a movie, and Nicholson was going to play Ants, and he was going to be Daryl, and it opened up the idea, the possibility, like, oh, you can adapt Faulkner. Yeah, right.

And I was like, well, he didn't do it. I'll do it. Right. And that's my childhood book. That was my thing that I read on the weekends, you know, when I was at home and all my friends were partying. And so that's how that started. And it was very, you know, artsy and whatever. And we took it to Cannes.

And I should probably have, like, stopped there. Like, one of them would have been enough. But, like, just like I had to go to multiple schools, it was like, oh, I got to do two Falkers and a McCarthy and a Steinbeck and a, you know. Yeah. McCarthy and a Steinbeck and a, you know. Yeah. It's so, those are so weighty because, and you wanted, but you wanted to, you know, honor the, you know, the impact of those books. Right.

Well, yes. And, and so there were upsides and downsides to all of them. Like it, it, it, as a director, those things pulled, those books pulled me in new direction because I was trying to, I figured, because there had been like a adaptation of Sound and the Fury long ago. What's her name? Paul Newman's Widow was in it. Joanne Woodward? Yeah, she was in one.

And it was not that good because they kind of just used the story. They didn't use any of Faulkner's structuring or style, right? Yeah, because they wanted to used the story. They didn't use any of Faulkner's structuring or style. Yeah. Because they wanted to have a story. But it's like, that story is not that. It's just Southern melodrama. You know what I mean? Without the style.

Yeah. And so I was like, I want to find the cinematic equivalent of Faulkner's style in these things. And so, like for As I Lay Dying, I did split screen because that book is told from all the different perspectives of the different characters.

These chapters, the perspective of different character. And I was like, ooh, this will give a sense of, you know, these multiple perspectives. So these were your experimental movies? Yeah. And they opened, you know, and they pushed me. Yeah. And you were afforded the luxury of being able to make them. Why?

Because I, yeah. Well, because i was successful and that got me that got me financing i uh and i also made them for a but i like figured out how to make them for a reasonable responsible budget but also pick projects that would still look good yeah even though they were period pieces so like as i lay dying they're on a cart for most of the movie going through the woods right the woods period no matter what you know what i mean it was like yeah so i thought i had i thought i had it figured out and in a sense you know doing all it's so many things yeah was part uh you know it was kind of what i had learned as an actor when i was

working at mcdonald's yeah and it was like i gotta make it i need to act every free moment that i have yeah because i need to make it yeah i'm the only one except for my teacher who's believing in myself right now. And it was sort of the same with the directing. It was like, I know I, I believe in hard work. The only way to get better is to put in your 10,000 hours, you know? Yeah. And, um, and so that was part of it. Like just do as much as possible. And then you're still, and you're still acting in other people's movies.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, Jonah hill made a joke at my roast it was like um yeah james the you know the the adage is like one for you one for them right yeah you do none for them and like seven for you or something like that yeah and it was yeah like i did sort of do one for them. I would do like a big studio movie and then a bunch of my little projects. 127 Hours is a big movie. Yeah. I did that when I was at NYU. And you stayed in that canyon? That's funny.

When I met with Danny Boyle, this is a funny story. that's funny when i met with danny boyle this is a funny story when i met with danny boyle yeah i was at nyu and i was in a weird place where i had suddenly sort of been relieved of my addiction to to work at least temporarily so my attitude was a little less than like super passionate yeah i was like oh danny i'll yeah i'll do your movie oh is it sort of i when i was in my artsy mode i was sort of like oh so we'll go to the we'll go to the canyon the real canyon and i'll just sit there we'll do it for like four days yeah i understand i like i won't dehydrate myself like he really did but yeah like it'll be like an art piece i'll just go for like five days like him

and you'll just film me is that what we're doing and he's like uh yeah so not really but yeah and uh and then he told my agents he's like yeah he didn't he didn't seem that passionate about it i don't think he really wants to do this and so i thought i didn't have the part right he met with some other actors and i i don't know what happened but they didn't get it and so my agents are like okay second chance they're like danny come on give james a second chance he really wants to do this yeah and he's like all right i'll give him a second chance but now he's got to read and i hadn't read for a movie in years at that point and so he's got he's like he's got to read he's got to fly out to meet me now so i flew out it was he was now in la i flew out i met him over at fox it was like 9 p.m he

didn't give me any sides beforehand yeah and he's like all right here's the monologue because you know the movie like there's not a lot of dialogue yeah it's mostly talking to the camera so they're on the page those are long speeches yeah he hands me right there he hands me this page and a half long speech where i'm like basically saying goodbye to my my family yeah because i think i'm gonna die so he's really putting it to you yeah he's like here go in the other room and whatever learn it and come back in like an hour and a half or two hours and yeah and then we'll do it well i had been doing general hospital before then doing 90 pages a day right you put

in your i can memorize like that i went in there i think 15 minutes i came back i'm like i'm ready he's like what i'm like yeah i'm ready let's do it and i did it one time and he like came over he gave me a hug he's like all right you're in and i got it so thanks the general hospital you got 127 yeah and he what's so great about him or one of the great things about him is he will set challenges for himself so on my movie, a guy alone for most of the movie. Yeah. But he's still, he's such an entertainer. So he wants to do that and not make just a little art movie. Yeah.

Like he wants to make this as dynamic as an action movie. And it really is. And, but he also is open enough when even on set to figure things out on the fly. And so we figured out a lot, you know, we pretty much shot in order. Yeah. We had a whole can, we shot in Salt Lake City. Eventually we went to the real Canyon to do some of the stuff, but we shot most of it on a set, but he had lasered the entire little crevice, the Canyon that we were in.

And so it was exact and then unlike most sets where there's walls that fly away so they can fit the camera in there he's like i don't want any flyaway walls because i want the crew to have to adjust as if they were really in the can in the canyon and and so it was created a specific kind of look and feel and so one of the first scenes is when the boulder falls on my arm and then the character uh tries to pull himself out with brute strength and danny so danny says to me um all, I want you to do everything possible. Bash yourself against the rock. Push, pull, kick.

Do everything you can, except obviously don't pull your arm out. And don't stop until I say cut. And I was like, okay, but I'm going to get bruised up if I really do that. He's like, yeah. And I was like, all right, well, you better get it on the first take because i'm gonna really go at it he's like okay we'll see and so i went i just i went at it right by the time i was done i was sweating crying everything uh it had been 21 minutes of just straight going at it and that's where we figured it out and he's like that was

amazing and he's like i'm only going to use probably 90 seconds of that in the edit but i'll give you i'll give you the 21 minutes and you can you know go watch get high and watch it with your friends and and uh uh but that's when we both kind of figured it out and realized that's how we do the whole movie. You just really do it. And we had these cameras that could go endlessly because we were hooked up to hard drives.

And it was like in those 21 minutes, he has my whole trajectory of getting exhausted and emotionally upset. And it's not like, okay, as the alternative would be like, okay, this is where you are trying to get out in the beginning. And you're really going at it.

Okay. Now you're like 12 minutes in, you're more tired, make yourself tired. You know what I mean? It's like, it's all real. Yeah.

And it's like, that's how we did the whole movie. So like the, the experience was authentic, like short of cutting my arm off, you know, uh, the experience was authentic like short of cutting my arm off you know yeah uh i was really doing all the things that aaron ralston did oh my god and that's the kind of the brilliance of danny did you talk to ralston much we did and um and that's what's interesting about that is he's a real

character yeah just like tomm Tommy Wiseau or James Dean. But he, as opposed to Tommy or James Dean, he's not, people don't know him by how he looks or how he moves or how he sounds really. Yeah, you can go to his talks and his inspirational talks, but that's not what he's known for in the same way that you see a poster of James Dean

and it's just an iconic kind of look and pose and everything. Ralston's not modeling jackets or anything. Yeah, well, the primary thing in the Ralston performance was to capture that experience in the most authentic way possible and what was the emotion that you put in place get out how do i get out but also despair also like did you know in its own way it's sort of like this is the end like if you come to the end, you're facing extinction. You're facing death. Yeah.

Now how are you going to, now what? What do you do there? How do you behave there at the end? But like, how does that leave the Oscars? So,

that movie comes out. Yeah. I'm nominated for an Oscar. Right. And this is sort of the moment of like, the Jim Carrey, like,

get everything you dreamed about yeah you're still like wait I'm supposed to be happy now right but not realizing it in the moment so I was nominated I was sort of hearing like you know Colin Firth King speech yeah you know everybody's favored favoring him yeah and so part of me i didn't know this at the time but part of me was like i don't i don't want to lose you know what i mean yeah but thinking at the same time no i'm above it i don't care i'm an i'm an artist i don't it's not that. But the other side of me is like, no, I want that award because I want whatever. It'll complete me or I'll be accepted or whatever.

I'll win. All those feelings. You can't blame me. Everybody has that, right? Who wouldn't have that? Of course you want to win. And so when Bruce Cohen, who was a producer on on Milk came to me and was like you

will you host the Oscars which was largely because Seth Rogen and I had done a little bit like a year or two before yeah where we were playing

our Pineapple Express characters right right right and it went over really well yeah yeah and he looked at that and he's like I remember that

oh yeah that's funny he could host it yeah I probably could have if like if seth was the other guy seth was my partner yeah and nothing against you know ann yeah i love her it was it was it it was me you know i i had that idea of i'll insert myself somewhere where i don't necessarily belong i never thought I would be the host or ever dreamed about it or wanted to do it.

I just thought same, same way with the general hospital. I never dreamed about that. It was just like, Oh, this will be an experiment. And so when they, when I was there,

they would be like, uh, do you want to, you know, Ann was all about, she was like gung ho. She's like, let's make this better. And she was working on it always. I was like, no you want to, you know, Anne was all about, she was like gung-ho. She's like, let's make this better. And she was working on it always.

I was like, no, I want you guys to, I want to be made over in the Oscar host mold. Like, I don't want, I don't have anything to add to this. Which was a big mistake, right? And like, I learned later, like Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, like when they did it, like they worked, like they were writing and then, you know, they knew how to do it. Right. And so. The hosting job.

Yeah. And then also Judd gave me great advice during that time. He, he had written some stuff. Yeah. That for you. Sadly. Yeah. Sadly didn't get used. Yeah. For various reasons. me great advice during that time he he had written some stuff yeah that for you sadly yeah sadly didn't get used yeah for various reasons and um and he just said to me on that night he's just like all right james this is your biggest acting performance yet you gotta just pretend you want

to be there like you just i don't i don't think i did like i was trying to i was trying to play the straight man and i just i think i just ended up playing like the wooden man like it was just you know you feel terrible when you were doing it i kind of knew because you do the rehearsal before and i just knew like it just it was just a little flat like the stuff that we shot like pre-shot yeah was actually not bad it was good yeah i was just yeah i don't know and like i was gonna come out judd one of judd's big things and i and it was you need a second act thing and second act kind of bit yeah and i was gonna come on as share singing she had a big song that year for that movie burlesque yeah it had won the golden globe for that song but then didn't get nominated

and so that's why they said they're like we don't want to do that bit anymore i think it might have been that i was like just the bats like so so bad as a singer, they were worried, but it didn't matter. Like that wasn't the, I didn't need to be a good singer. It was pretty funny. Yeah. But they pulled it instead. The bit was I just come on dressed as Marilyn Monroe.

Just that didn't make any sense. It was like the joke was that, and it just was not good. Anyway. Oh my God. Anyway, what I realized did you feel yourself tanking yes and no in fact

there's a weird thing when you host what plays in the room is different than what plays on what you can hear and so people came up to the producer Bruce after I think Spielberg different than what plays on what you can hear yeah yeah sure and so people came up to uh the producer bruce after i think spielberg he told me that spielberg came up to him and said that was

great so i don't know and then and then i got on a plane right after yeah and uh went back east because i was in school and i holed up in an apartment for a week i got a and like went to my classes and just hid in that apartment in that that hotel and shamed and read the yeah just read all the criticism you did i got like uh it was so heavy and so much stress i got a uh a hemorrhoid and i remember being in that that hotel room eating the food hiding out and just feeling horrible hurting in your ass yeah yeah yeah yeah but yeah but the whole thing was when i went on general hospital into a place where i didn't belong it was interesting to people and i thought oh it'll be the same thing on the Oscars.

And it was like, it wasn't because people look at the Oscars in a different way than they do. It was soap opera. Yeah. Yeah. But also I realized in hindsight that it was, it was a defensive move against the probability that I wasn't going to win. And it was like,

oh, I had looked it. And it was like, Oh, I had looked it up. I was like, only eight times has the host also been nominated at the same time. Yeah. And of those eight, only one in the history of the Oscars, David Niven has won the night he hosted.

And so I thought, all right, I'll do this move and it'll, I'll be saying like, all right, I don't care if i don't like yeah i'm right i'm sort of in control here i'm i'm sort of precluding my chances at winning yeah and um in fact i was just it was like hiding in a weird way hiding in like the

plainest sight possible right you would it would have been better if you just sat in your seat pretending like you didn't give a shit. Yes. Or you know what I should have done? What? Just enjoyed the ride. Right. You know what I mean?

I'm one of five. As a host? No, not hosted. And just enjoyed. Right, but you nominated. But you just said, hey, I'm one of five guys that's nominated this whole year and the whole world.

For this thing. Just enjoy that. Instead, no, you got to go up there and get a bunch of bad press. Yeah, exactly. Oh, fuck, man. Okay, so let's talk about the disaster artist

because I saw it and I told Allison I saw it because I see your brother on set sometimes. He comes because Allison's, I work with her every day. Oh, yeah. For Glow. She's the best. I love that show, by the way.

Oh, thanks. You're really great on it. Oh, thanks. Yeah, it's real fun. She's great. She's a great actress. love that show, by the way. Oh, thanks. You're really great on it. Oh, thanks. Yeah, it's real fun. She's great. She's a great actress. It's the perfect role for her. It really is.

She gets to do all her actors. But to balance that much desperation and ambition and still be charming and a sympathetic character, it's crazy. It's funny, actually. It's sort of another side or flip side of my character in The Disaster Artist. Well, that's the thing. I didn't know what to expect, crazy it's funny actually it's it's sort of another side or flip side of my character in uh the disaster well that's the thing like you know i didn't know what to expect and i didn't

know how it was being marketed or anything and what you know i've been in la long enough on and off for years to have remembered the billboards but never going but just remembering those menacing billboards you did remember those of course yeah but i didn't know that it'd become a cult thing i didn't know any of the history of it did you know it was a movie because i didn't even know it was a movie well i knew it was a movie and then years later you know people said that they it was the worst movie ever and then but i remember when it came out when did it come out because i know 2003 yeah because i was coming out here was up for like five years forever on his own dime hundreds of thousands of dollars yeah and i never saw the movie because i'm not

one of those guys i can't i don't really enjoy things that are so bad they're good i never it never registers that way with me yeah you know i always feel bad different so bad it's good right no i get that right yeah like like the laughter like if you i don't know if you've since been to like a theatrical screening of the room i haven't i need to go the laughter in there doesn't sound cruel to me right it's it's like the atmosphere in there is communal and when tommy shows up to those screenings people are so excited well i like that in the in your movie that turn yeah at the premiere yeah and that's that's we we kind of truncate that, the turn. You know, it was a little longer in real life, but that's exactly what happened.

Where Tommy Wiseau, when he was making the movie The Room, he lacked self-awareness. Like more than anybody alive. Like, you know, it was like, I say he had reverse body dysmorphia where he wasn't a slim person that thought he was overweight he looks like captain jack sparrow yeah meets whatever and thinks he's james dean right right narcissism kind of. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, certainly narcissism. Yeah. And he put on the original poster a Tennessee Williams-level drama, right? And he paid for the thing, $6 million.

Looks like it was made for $60. It looks like dog shit, right? He kept it in the theaters for two weeks on his own dime to qualify for the Oscars. So it showed what he was aiming for and how kind of out of touch he was in one way. But as soon as he realized that people were laughing at it, he had the wherewithal to capitalize on that and then take credit for that. take credit for that yeah and so as out of touch as he was when he was making it he became a maestro of self-publicity and like capitalizing on this thing this thing like he became as skilled as a kardashian you know using his you know the but but still like the the scope of that you know like i understand what you're saying and it's all within the con it's within the parameters of this this event that

movie you know it's not like he's not well known but within the parameters i mean it's been playing 14 and a half years i mean i went to london there is a i mean in london okay maybe i'm just out of touch but but what we were no and I'm not saying that. I mean, he's not. I'm sure I am. Yeah, no, I know what you're saying. But the thing that really got me, after being in this business for a while,

that there is a level of ambition and desperation that percolates in this town all the time. Yeah. And that what was fascinating to me was sort of the commitment of all these other people around this there were guys that were like are these checks going to be cash i don't give a shit but the actors who were like we're going to do this and then they stayed with it throughout all the way to the premiere they went to the fucking premiere but there's

this this world it's not even b-movie stuff and i and i and i i'm hesitant to say it but there's that moment with Judd where you're Tommy and he's Judd and he's laying that thing down where it's like, you're not going to make it. Because in that moment, whatever that character that Judd is playing knows that you're not talented.

There's no fucking way that you're going to make it by the rules of the way this thing works. And he was being honest. I know. So hard. And the way this thing works. Yeah. And he was being honest. I know. So hard. And the underlying thing is that there's this ambition. There's this like everyone has a chance and you work hard and you work hard and you work hard.

But the underpinning of this character is that he's fundamentally not a talented person. Yeah. And it's painful to me in a good way that you made him sympathetic and that, you know, that and he was flawed and creepy. And, you know, like and like they're like, I didn't know a lot about it, but like that you thank God your brother was there, you know there to play off you because I don't know if there was a choice there, but it seems to me that that relationship between those two men was a lot more darker and insidious. The real one? Yeah. For it to – then Davey was going to allow. It was almost like you had your brother.

Could be. I mean, yeah. I mean, there is a, I guess you could call homoerotic sort of hint, even in our thing. Yeah. No, no. Yeah. Here it comes. Yeah.

Which is also weird because it is my brother. We didn't want to hammer that too hard because I think it's somehow more than that and less than that. Yeah, you had to balance the film because it is a fairly traditional movie. You didn't make an art movie. You made a movie about a guy. Yeah.

Right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, that's why I wanted Seth R rogan and point gray to produce it right i saw like oh this is the one that's bizarre enough that it appeals to me yeah but it also has the potential to cross over that the underlying thing that you're talking about of everybody want you know everybody with a dream can relate to being on the outside,

at least in the beginning, right? I mean, I heard it in your story from what I've heard of it. We all, and it's my story too. Everyone's at McDonald's. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone has something of that. And even if you're my brother, Dave,

whose brother is on Freaks and Geeks when you're actually in high school, when he came, he had his own trials of like, oh, I got to be James Franco's little brother. Like, you know what I mean? Like, and so we all have something. So I knew that that was universal enough that it could reach people and people could relate to it

and that we had a sympathetic character potentially. I just, I found it was fascinating that as all these people are being brought along for this journey, just because this guy has the money to do it. You got a guy with money saying, I'll pay you all. There are plenty of people, whether they like it or not, are going to be like, all right.

How long is it going to take? Right? Right. And that's where there's two parts of this movie that are interesting where it's like part of it is just the story of outsiders with a dream, right? Yeah. And just trying to pursue that dream, albeit through the upside down cracked lens of this bad movie, The Room. Yeah.

The other side of it is at a certain point, like all the people got on board, the actors, the crew, maybe just because they were being paid. Like the, the, the character that Seth Rogen plays,

I shouldn't talk about him too much because he I don't know he goes he probably goes out and says he's the real director of the of the room right guy who Seth played yeah yeah like they all were there at a certain point whether they got on board and like it's you know so you get like when you start out like if you can just be in front of a camera you're like yeah yeah i want to do it or and jackie weaver's character says you know the best day on a movie set or the worst day on a movie set is better than the worst best day anywhere else you know part of that's true like you're in it's the dream factory you get you know this is it yeah you know that part of that there's something about that that's true

at a certain point most of the people on that movie must have thought, oh, this is really bad. But at least nobody will ever see it. But then the crazy part of this story is that it then turned around and then did become a cult hit. But here's the question. Did any of those people in that original movie go on to have careers as actors? No. See, this is the thing that this no and so they ironically are known for that for the room and so that's why

they're all sort of like a family now now like greg had to go out and write that book yeah the smartest thing he ever did was co-write it with Tom Bissell, who's an incredible writer. And they turned this story that could have been a series of ridiculous anecdotes into something that was very moving. Yeah, I thought the movie was very moving. And I thought that the character that you put, you really locked into that guy. And, you know, like if you've been in Hollywood, if you you haven't met that guy you've met guys like him you know i mean like him in yeah only in the sense of like you know they they got a big awareness and yeah yeah yeah there's something about movies too like there's hubris in every profession sure

but there's something about movies where it's so public it is a collaborative medium i think you know when it's working in the best way and and tommy i i wrote a review of the book even before i got the rights to it and i said i respect tommy because how many millions of people come out here and they don't even make the movie you know their movie tommy made his movie. He got it made. But when he then was in the process of making it, he's working in a collaborative medium, and he didn't know how to collaborate. But I also can't blame him

because the guy was told no his whole life. He was rejected his whole life, and so he learned through experience that the only one he could depend on was himself or maybe his friend, Greg. know his whole life he was rejected his whole life and so he learned through experience that the only one he could depend on was himself or maybe his friend greg and so when he got to the movie set he didn't know how to turn off the the self-will and maybe listen to a few people that could give him advice and maybe help him avoid a few pitfalls. Like, Oh, you don't have to buy all the lights.

Yeah. You don't want to shoot with two cameras. You don't have to shoot a green screen in the parking lot. Like, you know what I mean? Like, but on the other hand, the way most artists learn,

right. Yeah. Is you put something out there, and if it doesn't come off like you intended, it fails, and you realize, oh, I shouldn't do it that way anymore. Like, I should change up what I'm doing. Like me, right? Like, I was doing those dramatic movies, and it was like,

oh, I don't know how to collaborate. I'm doing the James Dean thing. I'm not getting the results I wanted. Change it up. I learned. I learned by hitting my head against the wall. Tommy didn't get to hit his head against the wall because the movie that he intended to be Tennessee Williams level drama and wasn't then turned out to be this cult hit. Thank God. Why? why well he'll never

yeah i mean yes thank god but it also trapped him forever dude the persona but you you're like okay you just you believe that there was there was no no hope hope anyway for that guy. Well, it's not a matter of hope, okay? It's like, I don't know why any, a lot of times you don't know why anybody makes it or whatever. It's a weird alchemy of coincidence. Yes.

And sometimes talent, sometimes ambition, sometimes timing, whatever the fuck it is. Yes. So for me, the heartbreak of it is and who and who am i to judge really because i spent a lot of time you know not making it and and i didn't have any other plan to do anything else in my head but the one thing about movies is that it's one of the few businesses where people just come here with no skill or talent and go like i'm gonna be in the movies yeah you know and and you know there's just this

weird magical thing where the movies will take care of me i'm gonna be famous well that's part of it too that is actually akin in tommy that's akin to james dean where the movie is gonna save you if i make it in the movies like James Dean had a hole in his soul yeah he lost his mom when he was eight yeah his dad sent him away to live with his aunt and uncle right lost both parents essentially when he was eight years old did you ever find out the back what is Tommy's background I know it's sort of yeah I mean the three mysteries are you know where he's from he's sound like this you know like he he's from. He's sound like this, you know, like he's from Eastern Europe, but he's, say, from New Orleans, all-American guy.

Like, it's a thin veil. Like, you don't... And you kind of know he's not from New Orleans, right? But you didn't say it in the movie. Because to me, it's not a... That's not the mystery. Like, I know he's not from New Orleans. No, I know that, but... I know he's not 20 years old.

You know, I know he's like, at least in his late forties. I, and where he got the money, like is scary to me. Like, you know,

it's not about uncovering that. What's interesting to me is the guy that holds onto that facade so tightly. Okay. Why? And the emotional underpinnings of that okay that's what we revealed no i get that you know and there are scenes where you know where he's walking around with his ass out and that scene with that actress that was rough stuff dude yeah that was a i mean you gotta contextualize it a little bit like nobody that was a big that's one of the climactic scenes in the movie where

tommy he if you know the room there's like four sex scenes the most ridiculous absurd horrible sex scenes you ever seen in a movie in the first 35 minutes of the room right yeah on the set the legend is he directed those scenes almost fully nude. Yeah. And so we show that in our movie. But tonally, that scene was so tricky. It's sort of the gist of our, it's like a, it's the nucleus of our movie where it's the guy is acting out he's really inappropriate uh he but it's also so absurd it's funny and um and it's also for our character a moment where he feels like he's losing his his best friend uh to a girl yeah a woman yeah and so

he and he's full of self-hatred and so he's taking it out on the on the crew and the actors what what i found though for me like you know okay i don't know what how i'm reading it because i you know i get sort of sensitive to to desperation and to people that are broken yeah you know is that you know that actress's decision to sort of like i'm okay i'm okay after being you know verbally and emotionally abused and and and and you know and and you know pounced upon in a fairly you know unsafe set yeah right oh yeah you know and for her to say like no it's good let's just i want to stay in the movie yeah and then paul sheer's character is like this is fucked you know that and it's got it's it's just like the desire to be in the movie right the desire to be dark it's pretty

dark and those audition processes it's not just about sex either yeah the men too i yeah i get you and i think i'm not saying it's me it's i think it's a great it's a great portrait of that yeah i'm just saying i think on ours you know it is on one level dark we didn't want to but we worked really hard to balance it out no one thing that doesn't make that my character tommy completely irredeemable at that moment because it is on one level really awful what's going on yeah is he's so absurd like he doesn't like well he's emotionally broken yeah almost like uh alien right he doesn't like he doesn't sex scene like he doesn't know what he's doing or he's, or he's fundamentally, you know, not comfortable with women, which is probably more of the, right.

The thing or, or with people in general. Right. Except for. And so he's like Greg, what you're talking about where the movies are going to save me. Well, what is Tommy? Like, what did Tommy want? Why did he want to make it in the movie so badly? There's a interesting thing in the book so they in the

book they go a little bit into his backstory yeah they kind of in the book there's they say like they keep his childhood vague but they give you hints and they're like imagine they kind of word it this way imagine a boy in an eastern block country he sees an american movie for the first time yeah he's enthralled it allows him to escape and that you get the sense that maybe tommy started to think about american movies and escaping his situation by going to america you know as the same thing that the american movies in america were equated and so that becomes the what's going to save his life i get it yeah and then there's also this thing in the book where and we kind of touch on in our movie where tommy kind of hits a bottom judd just devastates him says you're never gonna make it and Tommy is you know he's

he's at the end of his rope well the real Tommy did hit a depression was possibly suicidal and then the real Greg says and then after that you know he was leaving Tommy was leaving messages on Greg's machine like saying I don't want to live you know but I don't but I believe in God or you know and but sad though it's sad it's brutal and then he shows up with this script the room

and in the room the character commits suicide and I look at that and I was I'm very moved because it's like he channeled, he channeled his pain into the movie. Interesting. And so in that sense,

not only were the movies going to save him, like make him accepted, it actually maybe saved his life. Right. To me, that's moving. And that's what an artist does, you know,

regardless of the skill level, he's doing what an artist does. And I, I like, so that's what an artist does you know regardless of the skill level he's doing what an artist does and i i like so that's what compelled you i mean everything i wanted to play that wacky guy like i wanted to play this no but but but at the heart of what we're talking about and what you're talking about is that you know you you were able to to to get past the pathos, the tragedy of this character in real life. And I must assume is a somewhat weird vibe around both of them to this day. Yeah.

And you were able to somehow see part of your own story, but also an artist's story. And you're not claiming that he's misunderstood or that the movie's good or that, you know, like, as we said before, it's a beautiful turn of events that happened for these two guys. Yeah.

But, but, but his persistence and his will and, and the, the, the circumstances of his financials, you know, enabled him to execute this completely unique disaster.

Yes. And here's the thing. It's a disaster, but it's been in theaters for 14 and a half years in almost every major city to sold out crowds. People are getting something from it. and so i also like the idea that even though it is not a success or good by any conventional standards it is still sort of a weird uncanny success sure and i've probably watched it as much or more than any other movie that in my life you know and and i do get

something out of it and people under not people i respect get something lynn manuel miranda email i don't know him that well i've never met him face to face but we're email buddies when he heard that i was making that movie he emailed me was like oh my god i cannot wait for your movie i love the room okay so i think my problem is i gotta see the room maybe no i do because because i'm only approaching it like without seeing it i my heart you know is scared of that man and feels bad for him and don't feel bad for him I mean in another way you know he got everything

that he wanted you know what I mean he was a lonely dude he now has a community he walks into those screenings and everybody's excited to see him and he's alright

you have a relationship with him he's actually really sweet he in his contract I got all these stories but we gotta end this thing right

he demanded that he have a scene in the movie we didn't want him on set right cause we all I knew about him was what I had read in the book and it like we don't want that energy around right he finally came to set and we were

like oh man what's he gonna be like and I wanted him in the movie I thought it'd be a cool like little Hitchcockian kind of we were like, oh man, what's he going to be like? And I wanted him in the movie. I thought it'd be a cool little Hitchcockian kind of nod. But in the background, right? He's like, no, no, I'll have to be

seen with James. I'm like, Tommy, I'm playing you. It's not going to work. It's not that kind of movie. No, no, I'll sing with James. I'm like, oh my God. And so he's like, I want my character to be named han ray i'm like okay and we wrote him this scene my tommy is at a birthday party with greg and realizes that greg has all these friends and i don't have any yeah so i'm in the corner by the food pouting yeah and then this character han ray is going to come up and talk to me whatever three weeks three weeks before or two or three days before we shoot

tommy it sends me this text message he's like uh obviously he's obviously in this um lens crafters because he sends this photo there's all these glasses behind him he's like what you think of these glasses uh good for character I'm like yeah they're great yeah I can't tell it to you it's great and and he had drawn on a mustache with Bic pen in the photo and he says if you like mustache I draw it on better when we shoot I'm just like dude this guy you know like he's so out of touch I'm like i'm like tommy if you want a mustache we'll get you a fake mustache okay he shows up his hair's in a ponytail he's got

the fake mustache he's got the glasses and he's han ray he comes over we do and but he comes to set and he's actually really sweet yeah he won seth ro over. Seth was like, oh my God, this guy's really. And I interviewed Tommy as Tommy. It was so bizarro. Tommy acted as if like, yeah, of course somebody will be interviewing me as me. Like this was coming for years now. Like if anything, like we're like five years too late.

You know what I mean? This should have happened earlier. like if anything like if anything like we're like five years too late right right right this should have happened earlier i asked him uh so tommy you going to ever direct another movie he's like yeah i got this movie american stud uh you ever seen american gigolo i'm like yeah he's like i like that but it's with gay sex very controversial i'm like i'm thinking like what they've never made like never made a movie with gay sex before like he hasn't seen a movie of you know after 1962 or something and um anyway seth was like afterwards he's like hey uh it'd be really interesting to do a movie with with tommy should do American Stud. And we go over and we're like, hey, Tommy, we want in to American Stud.

Maybe we'll do little parts in your movie. What do you say? He had to think about it. And then he's like, okay, maybe I'll give you a Seth part, okay. And then we're like, what's the budget of American Stud? And he's like, well, it's probably like 20 million. We're like, well, that's never going to get made, right?

But he's a really sweet guy. I could talk about him forever. He is in a weird position. There's Tommy before the room, who is a very very earnest sincere guy trying to make a dramatic movie and there's tommy after the room who takes credit for it being a comedy right you know where as before you said you know people will watch this movie and they will not be able to sleep for two weeks they'd be so disturbed right and now after now he says the room is safe place you can laugh you can cry do whatever you like express yourself

just don't hurt yourself right so like oh i know you go to canters right their place was canters and we have it in the movie right because that was their spot two weeks ago i call it honest tommy day we had done some press and afterwards greg the real greg texts me. He's like, Tommy and I are at Cancers. The waiter that we used to have circa, you know, early 2000s is here. You should come and surprise Tommy. I'm like, okay. So I go down there. And Tommy says to me, he's like, and normally this, I mean, he's not normally not this open right he says um

and unprompted he's like you know james the room it don't come out exactly as i intended i'm like wow because that i mean i knew that right yeah but he never admits that i was like really he's like yeah but you know what? It get reaction out of people and that maybe all you can hope for. I'm like, yeah, wow. Okay, okay. I agree with that.

And then he goes, I've seen your movie three times now. He saw it for the third time at the Chinese Theater, right? And it was like incredible because when he premiered his movie 14 and a half years ago it wasn't at the chinese theater but he had made all these t-shirts that said the room and he pulled up outside of the chinese theater and popped out of the sunroof and threw the room t-shirts at all the people standing there he said

don't don't go see that movie it was like memento or something don't go see that movie come see my movie right yeah here we were 14 and a half years later you know yeah premiering at the chinese theater and and he goes you know after watching it third time at the theater uh you know your movie it make it very moving it made me emotional i was like really he's like i was like which which scenes particular? And he's like, well, two scenes. First is Greg's scene. And I'm thinking, Greg's, Greg's scene. What is, what does that mean? And then he goes, and scene, I end, you know, when Greg give me that advice, you know, because real Greg, real Greg do that for me. And it made me very emotional. And he, you know, my best friend. He's still my best friend. And I was like, oh, man, that's really great. That's touching.

And I go, but what's Greg's scene? What do you mean by that? And he goes, you know, scene in swimming pool. And if you know the movie, it's this scene where my brother is greg is in the pool with allison his girlfriend in the movie i'm like tommy what that's that's your favorite scene you're not even in that scene there's greg talking about like imdb with his girlfriend and he's like yeah that swimming pool scene it made me very emotional. I'm like, why? He's like, because swimming pool, you know, it happy place.

I'm like, what? What? So fucking funny. Whatever, dude. Anyway, anyway, with this movie, The Disaster Artist, this was sort of the melding of my two worlds, right? Yeah, yeah. uh was sort of the melding of my two worlds yeah right yeah and and it was in weird way like tommy wiseau is this weird comedic dark comedic character but underneath is all the

pathos of james dean you know and and all that and and so and then not only that i by playing tommy i i could relate to him in his struggle and his dreaming. Yeah. But after playing him, I realized, oh gosh, I relate to him so many more ways than I want to admit. Right. And that willfulness and that blindness and all that. And it really woke me up. that blindness and and all that and it really woke me up and i and i've come to this place where i realized you know when i that first phase when i went back to school i was like

deeply depressed yeah and i realized that i had you know in hindsight i realized oh yeah i was making you know my career my my whatever the goal of my life or what, basing my happiness on that. I sort of did this. I didn't realize that by going back to school and doing all these other things that I was just doing the same thing in a new, you know, in a different way. Yeah. Yeah. And what I had to realize was like oh take a step back

i mean i had the best circumstances possible on disastrous my working with my friends and family my brother my sister-in-law my oldest collaborator seth rogan all these great people on great material. I get to direct and act and all this stuff. But that can't be the end all. It has to, I have to be okay with myself first. Right. And then you get to live a great life, but you have to figure out how to fill that hole in a different way. You know, in this this forum it kind of sounds

i don't know cheesy or whatever to say it's a spiritual solution but it is it is and then you get to and then you get to live a great life yeah you're getting tight with the spiritual solution yeah good how are you putting both your parents still around my father passed five years ago yeah but you got to see your success. He did. And that was a, it was a tricky thing. He, because he said when I was going, when I started acting, I dropped out of UCLA and worked at McDonald's. Yeah.

He was like, you're being a fool. And I think he was just scared for me, you know, because he had been a painter. Yeah. He met my mom in painting class at Stanford and then stopped painting and went to business school at Harvard and so I think there was probably a part of him that was afraid to pursue the art just like Jim Carey's dad I mean that when I saw that documentary I was like oh my god Jim Carey's dad was a that up and and and and so i then made you know then i and then i kind of made it i could support myself as an actor it was night you know we did get some time before he passed and where he did

tell me i'm proud of you and then the last thing he saw me do was my thesis film at NYU and I played this other poet, Hart Crane, whose father was a millionaire from chocolate, as his chocolate company. Hart Crane's dad actually developed the Lifesaver and sold the patent because he didn't think it would make money, right? Yeah. In like the 20s or 30s. Anyway, he was this millionaire and he didn't support his son who just wanted to be a poet. Yeah. And I made this movie about it. And it was the last thing. It was the last time I ever saw my dad was at the premiere of that movie at the L.A. Film Festival. And then I remember at his funeral, I was like you know that was the last movie

ever saw and hart crane's dad never supported him never came around and they they never you know they never connected and i was so grateful that my dad and i had come around full circle and and he had seen you know my movie and yeah and that he did support me so that was really great oh that's good on the other hand it would have been a bad movie to go out on if you had not reconciled yeah on the other hand

five years ago it was five years ago in October when he passed I think I still had something in me where i had to prove it to him because like you know they when i when i went into acting school left ucla and went to acting school it was like oh you don't believe in me then i'll show you i'll show you i'll show you and so when he passed i can see now all you know all the activities like ratcheted up even more

that's when it went into overdrive and it was just like I have to work 24 7 to prove this man wrong yeah I guess and it like my dad was no longer there so then it was just the world I've got to prove it to the world that I'm something

and I finally you know i did it he didn't make you feel worthless so he just didn't have faith in your ability to become what you wanted to become exactly yeah i mean he always believed in me and he he tutored me in certain things he tutored me in math yeah you know what i mean it was like but he was a good dad yeah i mean yeah in a lot of ways but yeah but there was a part of me that didn't feel like he was the artistic father right but your mom was though right yeah and she came around she's very very loving and we um are very close but there was just a period. By the time my brother came around seven years later, and I'm on Freaks and Geeks,

and he's a freshman in high school, and then he comes out to LA, and he's going to USC, and he's like, yeah, I don't want to finish USC. Maybe I'll do the acting thing. They're like, yeah, do that. You got the easy ride.

Go for it, buddy. That's good. Well, i'm glad everyone's good anyway and also we need to get to talk about it but i like to do so why you're doing great oh thanks brother yeah man uh great talking to you yeah man we'll have to do it again we got so much we could talk about yeah we keep going but not tonight okay all right there you go. We're going to have to do it again. We turned those mics off. I turned the mics off, and we talked about other stuff.

He's like, we should talk about that next time. And I'm like, you got it, James Franco. Dig it. Can you dig it? No guitar today. I got to shower. Boomer lives! delivered with Uber Eats? Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs, mozzarella balls, and arancini balls?

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