In his first interview since he co hosted the Oscars show in January, James Franco told me that singling him out as the cause of a bad show is short-sighted.”
Critics accused him of being sloppy and unprepared. Some even suggested he was under the influence of drugs.
“I did try my hardest and I feel confident as a performer,” he stresses. ”Looking back at it I don’t know how could I do it differently. I didn’t have a low energy; I was saying those lines as good as I could and trying to deliver them as funny as I could.”
The “127 hours” star also regretted posting a mocking photo of screenwriter, Bruce Vilanch, who worked as a writer on 22 Oscar ceremonies, on Twitter.
“I made a mistake,” he smiles. ”I messed with the phenomenon of Twitter. I saw a comment that he ostensibly made out of context and so I responded quickly and then I tried to take the photo down in 5 minutes but because it’s the internet, it was already out. We have made up. But no one bothered to report that.”
Like the rest of the world, Vilanch had blamed the Show’s failure squarely on Franco’s poor performance, telling the press that he had arrived too late to the pre show rehearsals.
Last December, the 32-year-old actor, along with actress Anne Hathaway, was picked up by the Academy to host the 83rd Annual Academy Awards ceremony in order to attract the young generation.
But not only did the show suffer a decline in its telecast rating, it was also decried by some as the worst in the Oscar’s history. While Hathaway escaped the wrath of the critics, Franco was mercilessly savaged.
Looking fresh and ebullient, the Oscar nominee, who is busy studying for a Master in Literature at Yale, arrived today to promote “Your Highness,” a comedy he is co-starring with Natalie Portman and Danny McBride.