The curtain has fallen on a long-standing Hollywood friendship. James Franco recently disclosed that he is no longer on friendly terms with Seth Rogen, his co-star in numerous 2000s blockbusters. 'No. I haven’t talked to Seth,' the 46-year-old actor told Variety in an interview published last Friday. 'I love Seth, we had 20 great years together, but I guess it’s over. And not for lack of trying. I’ve told him how much he’s meant to me.'
Franco also addressed the series of sexual misconduct allegations made against him by multiple women in 2018. Four of these women were his acting students from the film 'Spring Breakers.' In 2019, several students from Franco’s now-defunct acting school, Studio 4, filed a lawsuit against him and his partners. The lawsuit claimed that the Oscar winner fostered 'an environment of harassment and sexual exploitation' through 'widespread inappropriate and sexually charged behavior towards female students.' He settled the lawsuit for $2.2 million in June 2021.
In a 2021 podcast, Franco admitted to having relationships with students at his acting school, which led to his ostracization from Hollywood. 'Being told you’re bad is painful,' Franco recalled to Variety. 'But ultimately, that’s kind of what I needed to just stop going the way I was going.' He continued, 'So now, after having the pause and, I think, changing priorities, I guess what I seek to fulfill me in life [is different]. Ultimately, I think I’m kind of grateful because it did afford me a chance to just do whatever private work and really change what I need to change.'
Franco was also overlooked for a Best Actor Oscar nomination for 'The Disaster Artist' following the allegations and lawsuit. 'What I’ve really found is…I don’t want it to sound like platitudes, but honestly, this is my experience,' Franco explained. 'Sometimes life delivers things to you, and the delivery system is so painful. It really hurts. Yeah, I felt really proud of that performance in 'The Disaster Artist.' And OK, I wasn’t nominated. Yeah, that hurt.' However, he took a moment to view the situation from a different angle. 'But ultimately, from the big picture that I’m talking about, maybe it’s for the best,' Franco confessed. 'Who am I to say? When I was functioning in that workaholic mode, a lot of it was just my young self’s version of what a good life was. And I got pulled out of that.'
Following this, Franco began working on European productions. 'I’m so grateful to be working,' Franco told the outlet. 'I did go through a lawsuit, and during that lawsuit I wasn’t working. But then COVID hit so everybody wasn’t working. So, I don’t know, it was all…I mean, we were all kind of in it. So it was sort of like, 'I don’t know what I am.' But I did certainly use the time to, I hope, good purpose.' He added, 'And whatever had been going on with me before, I had to change my whole way of life. So I am proud of the kind of work I did during that time. And yeah, I wasn’t working in movies, but I certainly was doing a lot of work to change who I was.'
Franco has a new film on the horizon, an Italian drama titled 'Hey Joe.' The movie follows Dean (Franco), an alcoholic American WWII vet who returns to Naples in the early ’70s to find the son he fathered there before moving to New Jersey. Explaining how the film came about, Franco shared, 'The movie was actually kind of a gift out of the sky.' He continued, 'I’ve loved European cinema for a long time, and I’d seen [director Claudio Giovannesi’s] movies before this offer. And I’d met the writer, Maurizio Braucci, through another director named Pietro Marcello [‘Martin Eden’]. And then out of the blue, I got this offer. I was like, 'Oh, I like this. I like the redemption idea.' And then I love Italian cinema, in particular Claudio’s movies. So it was a very easy yes.' 'Hey Joe' is set to premiere in Italian theaters on November 28.
Source link: https://nypost.com
