Like many people, I’m not sure what to make of James Franco. I’ve gone back and forth in my head on him quite a bit in recent months, trying to figure out if I like him for doing all the odd things he’s currently doing — attending numerous colleges simultaneously, acting in soap operas and movies, painting, writing, hosting the Oscars, etc. — or if I hate him for making me feel guilty about not doing more with my life.
So I’d kind of decided that I hated him after the Oscars, when he came off as a bit of a prick to me, and then last night I watched this interview he did with Charlie Rose and goddammit the son-of-a-bitch is making me like him all over again. STOP CONFUSING ME JAMES FRANCO!
Rose interviewed Franco for almost an hour, in which I don’t think Franco blinked more than a total of seven times, and just about every minute of it was interesting, but I really found myself nodding in agreement with something Franco said about modern life — specifically, how all we now exist in two cultures: the culture of the “real world” all around us, and the culture of the web.
I grew up watching television every day. Now people grow up engaging with the internet every day. And that becomes part of our lives, that is part of our makeup. It’s just what we’re engaged with.
Below is a preview clip of the interview and you can watch the full interview here.