“I had a close friend in school, and there were rumors that we were gay. These rumors were started by—who knows?—people who were jealous, people who had been picked on, girls who had been picked on. So they started these rumors. I like it now that people said I was gay. It’s kind of cool,” says James Franco when asked about the origins of speculation about his sexuality. Franco sounds off on this topic and others in Playboy’s August Interview (issue on newsstands, online at www.playboydigital.com, and on i.Playboy.com Friday, July 15, with the complete interview available at www.playboy.com/franco). 

The actor opens up to Playboy Contributing Editor Stephen Rebello about co-hosting the Oscars, getting arrested during his teenage years, his simultaneous pursuit of multiple college degrees, answering his critics and why he is officially done with Twitter. Following are selected quotes from the interview:

On his roles as bisexual and homosexual characters, including in his upcoming film The Broken Tower: “I have a film coming up that I directed about the poet Hart Crane [The Broken Tower], and I give a blow job in the movie…‘Straight’ and ‘gay’ are fairly recent phenomena…Between World War I and World War II, straight guys could have sex with other guys and still be perceived as straight as long as they acted masculine. Whether you were considered a ‘fairy’ or a ‘queer’ back then wasn’t based on sexual acts so much as outward behavior. Into the 1950s, 1960s and so on, the straight and gay thing came up based on your sexual partner. Because of those labels, you do it once and you’re gay, so you get fewer guys who are kind of in the middle zone. It sounds as though I’m advocating for an ambiguous zone or something, but I’m just interested in the way perception changes behavior.”

On his many academic and creative endeavors: “I’ve been perceived as this guy yelling, ‘Hey, look at me. I want attention.’ I’m not going to school to get articles written about me. I’m just going to school. I write. I make movies. I’m going to school. I hosted the Oscars. I take these projects seriously.”

On his initial response when approached about hosting the Oscars: “When they asked me to do it, I laughed and said, ‘How am I going to get out of this?’”

On hosting the Oscars with Anne Hathaway: “[The Oscars telecast] is hard to talk about because it’s like assigning blame. They told me they knew I wasn’t Chris Rock and that they had designed the show around me…For three or four weeks we shot the promos and the little film that played in the opening. In the last week, when we really started focusing on the script for the live show and did a run-through, I said to the producer, ‘I don’t know why you hired me, because you haven’t given me anything. I just don’t think this stuff’s going to be good.’”

On reactions to his hosting of the Oscars: “After the show everybody was so happy, and Bruce Cohen, the show’s producer, hugged me and said, ‘Steven Spielberg just told me it was the best Oscars ever!’ As far as having low energy or seeming as though I wasn’t into it or was too cool for it, I thought, Okay, Anne is going the enthusiastic route. I’ve been trained as an actor to respond to circumstances, to the people I’m working with, and not to force anything. So I thought I would be the straight man and she could be the other, and that’s how I was trying to do those lines. I felt kind of trapped in that material. I felt, This is not my boat, I’m just a passenger, but I’m going down and there’s no way out.”

On why he tweeted during the Oscars: “As a way to say, ‘Whatever you’re seeing and hearing, those are other people’s words. I’m lifting the curtain and you can see a little bit of what’s going on.’ It was cutting-edge. I was trying to do the best job I could. I didn’t try to sabotage the show. I didn’t get high. I went to the rehearsals I said I was going to. I played the lines as I thought they should be played.”

On why he closed his Twitter account: “Someone at an event asked, ‘Why is your Twitter account closed?’ I said, ‘Yeah, it’s over. I’m not on it anymore,’ and suddenly it became ‘James Franco declares social media is over.’ Which is like saying nobody’s going to talk on the telephone anymore.”

On his long-term relationship with actress Ahna O’Reilly: “It’s over. That lasted about four or five years. We’d been living together in L.A. and then came to New York to go to school for two years. Then I signed up for more school at Yale. I think that was it for her.”

On Your Highness, the film he starred in with Natalie Portman: “I didn’t write that movie. I was just doing my job. I think I’m fine in it. They knew there were problems with that movie a year ago. Just because it comes out after the Oscars, it’s like ‘Oh, here’s backlash.’ Well, you have the year’s best actress Oscar winner in it, so wouldn’t that boost ticket sales? And people want to blame me for that? It’s just ridiculous. There’s this feeling about me like, ‘He’s doing too many things. Let’s get him.’”

On his desire to be a part of the Twilight movie series: “I had my agent tell [director] Bill Condon that I’d’ be happy to do anything in Breaking Dawn, but that was because it was supposed to be part of a multimedia project at Yale. I was working with a Yale undergraduate who had written an autobiographical play about putting on a theatrical production of Twilight in which I was a character. So I was interested in Twilight because I was going to be part of that play. I thought what a great connection it would be if I were also involved with the real Twilight.”

On his upcoming film Rise of the Planet of the Apes: “Here’s my guess: Critics will be out to kill this movie and blame me for it just because they are out to kill me. Last year people were pretty nice. This is the year when people are going to have fun going after me.”

On his 44 appearances on the TV soap series General Hospital: “Generally, people think actors start on soaps, and if they can, they move up the ladder. Early in my career I auditioned for soaps and didn’t get on them. Until going on General Hospital, I was like, ‘Of course I’m not going to go on a soap, that lower form of entertainment.’ I don’t view it that way anymore; it’s all entertainment, just for different audiences.”

On the trouble he got in growing up: “I was arrested for a lot of petty crimes. It added up. I was a ward of the court and was put on probation. Finally, I’d had enough chances, but they gave me one final chance, and fortunately I didn’t get into any trouble after that. Otherwise I guess it could have been like Lindsay Lohan, when she’s on probation and then she’s accused of stealing a necklace, and it’s a kind of small thing that becomes a big thing.”

On when he lost his virginity: “In high school with my girlfriend. I think girls liked me, but I was awkward, shy and emotionally immature, so I didn’t have a ton of girlfriends. I had short-term relationships and always got dumped, I think because I was too slow for them.”

On why it’s a great thing to be dissed or underestimated: “Because if someone from Gawker or any of those blogs wants to say I’m ‘the superstudent’ or ‘the stoner student,’ it takes the edge off this public persona that others have created for me. I can just slip under the radar and do my work without being bothered. They will perceive you however they want to anyway.”

On bloggers who have written negative things about him: “People from these horrible blogs came to my book party for Palo Alto last year. Normally I don’t care, but it’s like your worst enemy showing up at your birthday party, like, ‘Why are you here? Get the f*ck out of my party.’ But it gave me a chance to see that a lot of the people writing for these blogs are just people my age who are in the same writing programs I was—or trying to get into those programs. So it was like, ‘Oh, so you’re just one of my classmates who doesn’t like me. That’s what this is all about?’”

Anne Hathaway graces Harper’s Bazaar’s August cover, on newsstands July 12, and in the interview, the star opens up about love, career, fashion, her upcoming movie, One Day, and responds to James Franco’s comments about co-hosting the Oscars with her.

Hathaway talks about co-hosting the Oscars and responds to James Franco’s comments: “How did I take it?” she says mildly about Franco’s comments on Letterman. “I let James know that a whirling dervish is a more ?attering comparison than a Tasmanian devil. I called him, and we e-mailed a bit.” “In the grand scheme of things, I got to have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I met great people, wore beautiful clothes. And I got to put on a show. I don’t see a downside. Anyone who disliked my personality probably disliked my personality before the Oscars.”

Talking about fashion, Anne says she “feels like the luckiest girl in the world when I get to wear all these glamorous clothes,” but away from the red carpet, she is decidedly more moderate: “I’ve become a lot more specific about what I love and why I’m doing it,” she says.

On her boyfriend, Adam Shulman: “So far, it’s worked out great,” she says matter-of-factly, observing that she used to get caught up in the intensity of a romance. “Which has its wonderful side, of course,” she adds with a half shrug, “but also it was exhausting, and sometimes it would freak me out. Mellow doesn’t always make for a good story, but it makes for a good life.”

Photo credit: Alexi Lubomirski for Harper’s Bazaar.

The early reviews are in for “Your Highness”- and the verdict isn’t good. The medieval costume drama spoof has a 24 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Salon.com film critic Andrew O’Hehir mused about whether it was the worst film of all time. At the screening I attended, a fellow critic glanced at me after the show with a look normally reserved for trauma victims.

Indeed, not all of the jokes work in “Your Highness”- I’m not even sure most of the jokes work. But I’m not going to hate on “Your Highness”. Because while it’s stupid, hare-brained, strangely composed and pretty badly written, it managed to do what most comedies fail at: it really made me laugh.

The idea of creating a plot synopsis for this movie is like asking for an in-depth discussion of a Ke$ha song, but here goes: Thaddeus (Danny McBride), the younger son of a king of a faraway land feels overshadowed by his dashing, handsome elder brother Fabius (James Franco). After Fabius’ fiance (Zooey Deschanel) is kidnapped by an evil wizard (Justin Theroux) to be impregnated, Thaddeus accompanies his brother to get her back.

Ignore the fact that it’s basically a less funny Monty Python. Though it isn’t worthy to wash Monty Python’s feet, it does have its own offensive charm. Bad British accents, fart jokes and gratuitous dismemberment abounds. The jokes that work (including a particularly inspired piece involving a minotaur penis), work precisely because you feel slightly ashamed for laughing. Part of me felt I should be above the scatological, low-brow, obvious pot joke shitstorm that is this movie. But God help me, when Theroux crows triumphantly, “It’s too late! The Fuckening has begun!”, it was the most I’d laughed in a long time.

Not nearly everything works. There’s a far too long bit with a Yoda-like child molester called the “Wise Wizard,” and if this movie has a lesson, it’s that you shouldn’t ever include a child molester bit unless it’s the funniest bit of your life. And McBride is not a comedy leading man- there’s no lovableness to balance out all the homophobia and masturbation jokes.

This isn’t a smart movie, but it’s a fun one. Objectively I agree with all the negative reviews, but why hate on a brief stoner movie that brought me two hours of legitimate entertainment? I’ll bet anything you’ll feel a little bad about laughing. But laugh you will.

The Oscars are not for kids.

Scratch that. As a child, the Oscars gave me immense joy and pleasure.

But I’m under age 30, and no one my age should be allowed to host the Academy Awards.

The obvious attempt to inject a hip sense of youthfulness into the very mature annual primary movie award gala was a failed experiment that does not need repetition.

Now, Anne Hathaway looked cute as a button, and she was good in “Alice in Wonderland.” And James Franco was utterly amazing in 127 hours, certainly deserving of his nomination. That’s not what this is about.

They both, together and individually, proved to be terrible Oscar hosts.

Franco gave no emotion. His crooked smiles and sleepy line deliveries took away from the show. Hathaway giggled like a schoolgirl every 15 seconds and w00ted every, single person she introduced like some obsessed Twilight fangirl.

Was there also no need for an opening monologue or some humor or banter to start us off? The pair had virtually no chemistry and did not play off each other at all. They looked more like uncomfortable high school students asking each other to dance at a mixer.

The problem is that they’re only a few years removed from that portion of their lives. The hosts need to transcend the show and the stars they are honoring, not get all starry-eyed every time someone like Sandra Bullock (who would be a great host) or Oprah come up on stage.

It was so bad, that Billy Crystal’s cameo was the best bit of dialogue of the night, showing that while age isn’t everything, experience and talent sure help when it comes to hosting a major event live.

Actress Anne Hathaway, 28, told People about Oscar producers’ choice of her and James Franco, 32, to be the hosts of the next year’s Academy Awards, “I could not even begin to fathom their thought process.”

Even though she told the magazine that she had no idea why she was chose, she is surely very excited to do that with Franco. She said, “I can’t go into anything about it … just that I’m doing it with him.”

Put all the leading women’s magazines in the categories of fashion, celebrity, travel, food and self-improvement into an animated collage, covert the columns into dialogue and voice-over narration, add-in a sound track of sentimental favorites and soaring strings, and you’ve got "Eat, Pray, Love," the new film based upon the best-selling memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert. It’s beach-reading for the silver screen: glamorous people in beautiful places on a New Age pursuit of happiness, that begins and ends with the quest to find that special someone who’s right for you.

After a brief excursion to Bali for some exposition, our story kicks off in decadent New York City, where Liz (Julia Roberts), a successful magazine writer, is yearning for a shake-up. She is dissatisfied with her husband, Stephen (Billy Crudup), mostly, it seems, because he is all grown up and still does not know what he wants to do for a living. This is particularly problematic since they are trying to have a baby, another arrangement with which Liz is dissatisfied. She sues for divorce.

Saddened and off her mooring, Liz finds herself wishing she had a relationship with God, whom, she feels, could tell her what do next. She settles for David (James Franco), a lousy stage actor with a winning smile, a penchant for yoga, and a shrine to an Indian guru in his apartment. For reasons largely unexplained, this relationship doesn’t do it for her either.

Feeling restless and empty inside, she hatches a plan to fill herself with all of the sustenance and spiritual guidance money can buy. She purchases airplane tickets to Rome, where she will live in rustic squalor and eat in sumptuous luxury; India, where she will look up David’s guru for a formal meet-and-greet with the Divine; and Bali, where she can barter English lessons for wisdom with a medicine man she met on a magazine assignment at the beginning of the movie, while lounging in tropical splendor.

The rest is tourism. The Rome section offers breathtaking classical architecture, close-ups of tricked-out linguine that will have you ravishing your popcorn in agony, and some lively locals. Liz gains a Swedish gal pal, (Tuva Novotny) whom she liberates by convincing her that she can stand to gain a few pounds, and some Italians who teach her what’s wrong with Americans: we work to hard and have trouble enjoying our leisure time.

In India, she speeds past scenes of staggering poverty in a bus bound for the ashram, where she mostly seems to learn that meditating is harder than it looks. Additional eastern-style lessons about acceptance are beat into her brain by talkative Texan (Richard Jenkins) who’s been there longer, struggling to overcome the problems that fill the standard country-western song. In Bali, Liz learns to save the world (by, it turns out, exhorting her New York friends to make a charitable donation to a local). She also meets: Felipe (Javier Bardem).

If you’re in it for the pictures, you might well enjoy "Eat, Pray, Love." They are consistently beautiful and director, Ryan Murphy, keeps the camera in constant motion, such that sitting at a meal or even meditating never feel tedious or static. If you’re seeking wisdom however, in "Eat, Pray, Love," what you should expect to find is essentially a handful of chocolate fortune cookies.

It is surprising that "Date Night" is the first time that Steve Carell and Tina Fey have teamed up. They just seem like one of those natural pairings that should have done five movies together by now. Despite the long wait, a solid script and great performances from Carell and Fey and a very game supporting cast make "Date Night" an auspicious beginning to what I hope is a long partnership.

Carell and Fey play Phil and Claire Foster, a married couple that has fallen into a bit of a rut. Their two young children take up most of their time and energy. They have their routine. There’s book club and date night, always at the same restaurant — the waiter even knows them by name. Phil and Claire are shaken when they learn their best friends are separating. Both wonder if they have let things get too stale.

Trying to shake things up, the two decide to switch it up and head into Manhattan for dinner at a swanky new seafood restaurant. When they are unable to get a table ("people make reservations months in advance" according to the snooty host), Phil impetuously makes the decision to steal another couple’s reservation. Phil’s seemingly innocent bit of reservation theft leads to a night full of mistaken identity and bizarre encounters. The Fosters are forced to tangle with dirty cops, mob bosses, burnouts (Mila Kunis, James Franco) and an always-shirtless security expert (Mark Wahlberg).

What makes the craziness work so well is that Phil and Claire are a grounded and realistic couple. Yes they have their problems, but they are realistic, not just manufactured plot points. Carell and Fey have a nice chemistry, and are just plain likable. That may sound simple, but they are simply delightful together. The movie has us rooting for Phil and Claire before they are even in danger.

The all-star supporting cast is used exceptionally well and are given actual characters to play. Wahlberg has a blast poking fun at himself as a former client of Claire’s who seems uninterested in wearing a shirt, much to Phil’s chagrin. And Kunis and Franco are hilarious as the couple whose reservation Phil and Claire stole. Their scene is the funniest in the movie.

Director Shawn Levy capably balances the comedy and action with the character work. And stages one of the more inventive and impressive car chases in recent years involving two cars stuck together. Perhaps most importantly, Levy seems very comfortable directing large, diverse casts and gives everyone their moment to shine while keep things moving at a brisk pace.

While "Date Night" is nothing particularly original, it shows how fresh old standards can be when done well.

PARK CITY, Utah — "Howl," a film based on Allen Ginsberg’s famous poem and the subsequent indecency trial has been one of the hot tickets at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The film’s star-studded cast including Jon Hamm (“Madmen”), David Strathairn (“LA Confidential”), and James Franco (“Milk”) as Ginsberg has made "Howl" one of the hot tickets as Sundance. Eager festival goers lined up around the theater hours before the film’s premiere on Thursday hoping to get a wait-list ticket.

Blast was at the film’s press conference on Friday where directors Josh Friedman and Rob Epstein, cast members James Franco and Jon Hamm as well as the film’s producers talked about the film as a "passion project" for all involved.

Friedman said that the poem’s importance and brilliance made the development process challenging. Originally Friedman and co-director Rob Epstein considered tackling Ginsberg’s story as a documentary but changed their minds during the development process.

"It was not doing justice to the material," Friedman said. "We had to do something that broke form the same way Allen’s poem did.”

Friedman and Epstein agreed that "Howl" would not worked without Franco and his passion for the material.

Franco said he was a fan of the beats since his teenage years and was excited to play Ginsberg. “dJames was a genuine conduit for Ginsberg’s words," Friedman said.

Franco said he has been drawn to playing historical figures because it makes him a more responsible actor. The obligation to get his performance absolutely right forces him to give his best possible performance. He added that he does not choose his roles lightly.

"I play people I love and want to celebrate," Franco said.

Jon Hamm was drawn to his role as Ginsberg’s defense attorney Jake Ehrlich because of the film’s passionate message.

"The film is a passionate defense of artistic freedom," Hamm said.

Josh Friedman said that it was the cast’s passion for the project and the belief in the central ideas of the film that make the film something special.

"We were inspired by actors willing to put themselves on the line everyday," Friedman said.

Producer Elizabeth Redleaf said it was easy to be passionate about the project because of the almost surreal nature of the story.
"To think there were real people in a real place debating whether or not a poem could be called literature," Redleaf said. "It’s absurd."

Co-director Josh Epstein said that the popularity of Ginsberg’s poem today shows that art will always win against censorship eventually.

"Art is truthful," Epstein said. "That’s what lasts."

‘Pineapple Express’ is an intelligent comedy that will be the best movie ever if you’re a stoner, and a slightly-better-than-mediocre Judd Aptow comedy if you’re anyone else.

James Franco takes a step outside his film comfort zone as Seth Rogen’s loveable drug dealer Saul Silver. While some may be shocked by Franco’s easy portrayal of the character, those who watched the short-lived Aptow creation ‘Freaks and Geeks’ will recognize the Daniel Desario in Saul’s sentimental and oblivious personality.

While Franco was the scene stealer of the film, Rogen slipped deeper into the pot-smoking degenerate character he only seems capable of portraying as ‘Pineapple Express’s Dale Denton. While his crappy job is funny (he delivers court subpoenas), his high school girlfriend and the joint that is constantly in his hand do little to endear himself to the audience, unless the desired effect of his character was pity.

Newcomer Danny McBride’s character Red, Saul’s drug distributor, is funny, but not as quote-worthy as the compared McLovin from ‘Superbad’. If you want to see him really funny, check out ‘The Foot-Fist Way’ or this past week’s ‘Tropic Thunder.’

The most surprising aspect of ‘Pineapple Express’ was that it actually was action-packed. The over-the-top storyline felt a bit out of place when compared to Aptow’s previous two big films; ‘Knocked Up’ and ‘Superbad’, which were well received because of their relatability to the audience. That was ‘Pineapple Express’s biggest flaw, from its opening scene to its climactic finish: it was completely out of touch with reality. While it was undoubtedly funny throughout the entire movie, ‘Express’ failed to be a movie that everyone could relate to.

The film starts off when Dale (Rogen) purchases Pineapple Express, the filet mignon of marijuana, from his dealer Saul (Franco). Turns out Franco was the only dealer in town to have that specific drug, which causes problems when Dale drops a joint outside big-time pot distributor Ted Jones’ (Gary Cole) house after he witnesses both Ted and a woman murder an Asian man (the Asians are the competing pot distributors).

As the person who gave Saul the Pineapple Express, he recognizes it and goes after Saul to try to kill him, as he now thinks that Saul and the previously unknown Dale have turned on him and are teamed up with the Asians. Thus ensues numerous car chase scenes and shoot outs and more gunshots-that-don’t-lead-to-deaths than ever before seen in any previous action flick.

While there was one big car chase scene in the middle of the movie that was absolutely fantastic, Aptow should stick more with his realistic comedies than try to create the next ‘Rush Hour’. It was cool to see Seth Rogen as an action star, and it was clear that both he and Franco were having the times of their lives in their roles, but no one except Franco truly excelled in their roles. Unless you were high while watching the movie, it couldn’t be described as anything more than mediocre.

Judd Aptow seems to be slipping, and ‘Pineapple Express’ seemed to be little more than a dream project where the studio just let him stick as many joints (definitely more than 20) into a movie as possible. Let’s just hope that with ‘Year One’, coming 2009, he gets back to his ‘Superbad’-A-game.