James Franco admits that no one believes in “127 Hours.” Directed by Danny Boyle, the film is a biographical drama about Aaron Ralston, who is trapped in a rock in a Utah canyon.
“Danny wanted to do it, but no one else on the team could do it. Everyone said this was going to be a disaster,” he said at Italy’s Turin Film Festival, where he also won the Stella della Mole Award.
“Then they realized the real guy had his own video camera. He was talking to it. That opened up another way to tell the story. He wasn’t just sitting there quietly. He was able to get his inner thoughts out.”
Desperate to escape, Ralston ultimately made the shocking decision to amputate his own arm.
“I’ll tell you the obvious: Usually when you make a movie, you have multiple characters. But here, he’s stuck in a canyon, so he doesn’t have anyone to interact with. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever done as an actor.”
Franco pointed out that it was a first for everyone.
“Danny Boyle has never done a movie like this, and neither has[cinematographer]Anthony Dodd Mantle. Nobody’s ever done a movie like that! But even though it’s one man, one story, it’s still very dynamic. It’s like an action movie.”
“The interaction is between the character and the environment, the character and himself, the character and death, and on a technical level between the actor and the camera. It was there[in front of my face]the whole time. It was a completely different dance.”
His first meeting with Boyle didn’t go so well — “Maybe he thought I wasn’t as excited as I should have been” — but a subsequent appearance on the soap opera General Hospital, which he describes as a piece of performance art, proved helpful.
“There’s not a lot of dialogue[in 127 Hours]but there’s one big speech, where you’re basically saying goodbye to your family. Before that, on General Hospital, we were shooting 80 to 90 pages in a day. I got really good at memorizing lines, and I got faster. I did that, and Danny said, ‘You’re the one.'” And he hugged me. ”
When filming began, Boyle wanted to recreate Ralston’s horrific predicament.
“He said, ‘Look, you just got trapped. Your natural reaction would be to force your way out. So I want you to do everything you can to get out. Don’t stop.’ So I kept going, and I kept going. When he finally said “Cut!” I think it took about 25 minutes. I was really tired and sweaty. It became very realistic because we did everything Aaron would do except cut off my arm. ”
Franco’s dedicated performance ultimately earned him his only Academy Award nomination, an event he described as “very influential.” “At the time, it was too much to take in.”
Although the star has been embroiled in controversy in recent years, he still has a number of projects lined up, including Vincent Gallo’s Golden State Killer. He also completed “The Long Home” as a director. However, he is trying to improve his workload management.
“Let’s just say I was a little crazy for a while,” he said.
“I loved movies so much and there were so many stories I wanted to tell. I went back to film school to learn how to direct (and realized), ‘I’m no longer the guy who has to wait for people to call me to be in their movies. I can make them myself!'” This began a whole other chapter. ”
“I still have that. That obsessiveness, let’s call it that, because I’m a very obsessive type of person. But I’ve also learned that it’s good to have balance. I had to learn the importance of that.”
