"Lucky Boulder..."

Since his breakthrough film role as Harry Osborn in the Spider-Man films, James Franco’s film career has had a penchant for being unpredictable from Pineapple Express to Milk to Date Night to Eat, Pray, Love. Now, the 32 year-old steps into the shoes of real-life mountain climber Aron Ralston who was trapped by a boulder in a canyon in Utah for five days back in 2003 in the drama thriller 127 Hours.

Franco discussed how meeting the mountain climber helped shaped his performance.

“Well, I think a lot of things happened there,” he says, “A lot of very important things that ultimately guided me through the performance. So, I’ll talk about a few, but we had discussions, Aron did some of the early work of just walking us through and showing us some of the things that he did. But most importantly, and I think everybody that’s up here was in this room. We were at the Four Seasons in L.A., and it was the first time I met Aron, and he brought this ratty VHS tape that had the original reel videos on it.”

“And we all sat there and watched it,” James adds, “And for me, it was incredibly powerful for a lot of reasons. The main reason I think one of the main reasons, just as why it was so powerful, but why it was so valuable as an actor, too, is every other iteration of the story that you hear from now on, you know that Aron made it out. And Aron can tell the story and we can tell the story, but you know, kind of, with happens.

James continues by describing the content found in Strobel’s harrowing footage of his ordeal.

“On the video, it’s Aron in the middle of the situation, not knowing that he’s going to get out,” James says, “And he made the messages up until, you know, within an hour of figuring out how to get out.

"Lucky Boulder..."

And so, I imagine by the end, I was saying to myself while we were watching it, wow, there’s a guy that thinks he’s going to die, and in some ways, he’s accepted it. And it’s not in our film, too, because there’s some of the messages he goes on for a very long time, details about where his ashes should be spread. And then, he afterwards, you said a couple funny things. He said, gosh, it’s a little arrogant, I like because the places he tells people to put his ashes is like the top of this peak and here, it’s like all over the globe in like a hundred places they’re supposed to scatter his ashes.”

“And then, he also said something like, gosh, it’s weird to watch this with a director and an actor in the room because it’s such a poor performance,” he adds, “And we thought he was crazy to say that, but for me, as a performer, what I saw on those tapes was a guy with the knowledge that he was probably going to die, but the way he delivered the was with such dignity and really strength, you know, knowing that and a real simplicity. I mean, these are very intimate tapes. We were very privileged to see them. And so and it’s video, so, it feels very immediate. And it was just a guy talking to his friends and family in a very, very simple and intimate way, but also not wallowing in self-pity, you know, doing it with dignity. And that simplicity combined with that knowledge of death behind it was incredibly strong for me, and showed me, you know, a way to do the part, especially the video messages.”

It was asked whether James had his own survival skills that he put to the test in his performance.

“I’ve been lost,” Franco replies, “I got lost in Paris, I had

"Lucky Boulder..."

to find a taxi and there aren’t taxis at a certain hour, and it was really hard. No, nothing like that.”

Franco discusses the approach he took in making his portrayal of Aron as authentic as possible.

“I would say that our approach that we thought we could serve it best and serve the story best if it was like an inside out,” he says, “And I always had faith as an actor that if you do a lot of work beforehand, and then, proceed in a certain way so that it’s you’re generating the performance from inside out, that actually, you will hit the right beats on the outside.”

James speaks of how playing Aron has changed his life.

“If I hike, I’ll be sure to tell people where I go,” he says, “But it’s given me an appreciation for my life, for the people in my life, certainly. I always saw this and this is another thing that kinda went down, we had a discussion in the first meeting. Aron asked me why I wanted to play this role, and I still believe this, I love the way that it strips down this character and this person, that everything that is familiar in our day to day lives with other people, that we can get food from a restaurant or a store, just emotional dependence, everything that is familiar to us, and also just the daily activities that keep us from looking at ourselves, you know, in a very intimate way, all of that is taken away and it’s a man alone. And it’s a man facing death. And so, I imagined that what we had was a real way to just study what it is to be human, what’s important in our lives, what we hold onto from our outside life, and then what pulls us out, and what really gives us strength.”

“And I said in the first meeting, oh, Aron, I love

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all that,” Franco continues, “and I also like that you had the strength that you had the– the will inside you to get out and to do that. And Aron, I guess corrected me a little bit, and I think director Danny [Boyle] believes this as well that it wasn’t just himself, that one of the main things that– that gave him the strength to– to get out was his connection to his– the outside world and– and his friends and family, and that those videos weren’t just a last message, that they were actually a way to connect to those people. And obviously, Aron knew that they weren’t listening at that moment, but that he felt a real connection to those people, and that gave him the strength to survive. And so, it’s given me an appreciation for– for people in my life.

Franco has recently as a few weeks ago revealed he’s a budding author with his first book, a short story collection called Palto Alto. It was wondered whether his experience on 127 Days has inspired him to write any future books.

“Yeah, I don’t know, my book is like this at all,” he says, “I think my book is very different than Aron’s. I mean Aron could probably talk about how this maybe is inspiring a book. I think Aron has a new book in the works. But this is based on Aron’s experience, and then, I guess, research that he did about the area and everything else. And it’s non-fiction. It’s in a lot of ways a very different animal and it had different intentions than I have with my books.”

James discussed why he chose to do a film like 127 Days which largely focuses solely on his character and his ordeal.

“Well, like I said, I was attracted to just the setup,” Franco says, “I mean, the amazing story and Aron’s very incredible true story aside,

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just as a performer looking at a script like that was very exciting to me, and frankly, I actually don’t mind a slow movie, so if this had turned out to be, like, incredibly like slow moving movie, I probably would have been okay. But I know Danny does definitely decidedly does not like those kind of movies. And I think that’s one of the things that gives it this great power. There are a lot of contrasts in this movie. There’s an incredibly intense situation, but there’s humor. The character is static, but the cameras and the technology they’re using is, you know, cutting edge. And this is really, I believe, the most kind of cutting edge mainstream movie that you can find just based on, you know, what they’re doing with the technology, how they’re using the cameras. But to serve the film, not to show off, you know, and to serve the experience.

“And so, in that way, you get Beckett on speed,” he adds, “And it becomes like everyone said, one of the most common things that we hear is I’ve never had a movie experience like that. It’s because you’re– you’re drawn into the character and that really speaks to the way that Simon [Beaufoy] and Danny structured the script, told the story through behavior, and then, when the character does speak, it’s as if he’s speaking right to the audience. So, you get incredibly close, third person delivery, and then, almost first person where he’s talking to his friends and family, you never break the fourth wall, but it’s as if Aron’s talking right out to the audience. And so, it’s an incredibly intimate kind of thing and that gives it that energy. So, I personally would have been fine if it had been Jeanne Dielman, but I’m happier with this version.”

Finally, Franco addressed rumors that he would be doing a

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prequel to the science-fiction classic Alien.

“Yeah, that’s weird news, huh? “ James replies, “Maybe I’ll do Mapplethorpe in the Alien movie. I just heard about it on the Internet like yesterday.”