The Franco Files: Occupy Everything! I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead!

FRANCO ON FRANCO

“You’re always doing something… Always working! Don’t you ever just sit around and do.. ya know nothing?”

Davey Franco asks this of his older brother, James, as they share identical grins which both melt the hearts of fangirls, and simultaneously insinuate that they share some kind of a secret they both innately know (but which those watching this interview between the two Franco brothers will probably never know).

It’s an interview that feels almost as fun as it does awkward.

Oh, you can’t read the bubbles? Yeah, neither can I. Click the pic instead, please 🙂

My personal guess is that their matching smiles convey both a knowledge of this conversation which they’ve likely had in private a trillion times before, as well as perhaps a slight feeling of discomfort/embarrassment about the whole situation of being taped and interviewed as brothers in front of the world.

It seems almost as though Davey’s grin says “You’re too busy and you need to slow down!”, while James’ silently replies, “You know that’s just never gonna happen, brother….”
Mind you, this whole interview – with his own brother, had to be scheduled while James was in hair and make up for a photo shoot.

RABBIT, RABBIT, RABBIT

There are two camps of Franco followers. There are the “haters”, I guess you could say – the ones who claim he’s a “troll” – not in the ugly under-a-bridge sense, mind you, but in the colloquial sense of how he seems to be everywhere in all forms of entertainment, all the time – or so it seems (as the above Davey-James interview shows)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vQgivpITDs

And then there are the “fangirls”. I guess you could count me in (except for the fact that I’m too lazy to stalk his page beyond pressing his Facebook “like button” or twitter “follow” button. Beyond that, I don’t go “out of my way”; However, I do pay attention to his work when I do watch it.

If you happen to be a devoted Franco Fangirl, you might remember this interview a while back in which he claimed that “Rabbits turn him on”. It got a few quizzical responses and raised eyebrows, but hey, the guy was being honest.

For the entire interview, look below: (For the “rabbit reference” – fast forward to the Q & A section of the show (about and hour or so into it). A lot of people seemed confused, though they clapped and laughed – especially since he didn’t really expound on the “why” behind said fetish. I thought (and think) I get it though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzrDNLZ5qBk&playnext=1&list=PL7A046C2D4F3EEBC7&feature=results_main

Why? It’s not because I’m special. It’s because I pay attention and love the details he interjects into the projects he creates.

Let me be frank: I don’t have some obsession with some actor I’ll never meet. Yes, he’s sexy and I might just give up my asexuality for him if the chance arose; But I just genuinely admire him as a person, an artist, and I just enjoy his work.

So, what about the rabbit? Well, if you’re a fan, you might recall his film from circa 2008 or so called “Good Time Max”. Now, this film is among my favorites because, other than the fact that he took part in it’s creation (wrote and directed), I feel it is at least a slight parallel to some of the milestones or important parts of his own past in many ways.

Why would I think that?

Bringing it back to the “rabbit fetish”, if you’ve watched this movie (and not just his romantic titles like “Tristan & Isolde” which, incidentally, he hated doing, got injured during production, and just regretted having done at all), you might remember a specific scene in which his “Max” character admits to a coworker that he has a rabbit fetish, and that it stemmed from a repetitive childhood encounter with a pet rabbit who would always run away and never let him pet it.

And then comes my favorite quote of the movie:

I didn’t just laugh at this part… I straight up guffawed at that line. The subject. The delivery. It was too much!

Anyway…

Bestiality? Yes.

Crazy Psycho? No.

I mean, the childhood to adolescence period is when sexual association is acquired. Whatever your strongest urges are then, get indelibly coupled with sexuality. It’s a nearly permanent association; a connection, united forevermore.

For example, a young kid frustrated at his inability to catch and pet his rabbit might grow up to… you guessed it… “Be turned on by rabbits”. On the flipside, children exposed to violence very early on, may grow to either be sexually aroused by it, or they might start early by burning cats in the incinerator, watching them suffer as they burn to death, and grow up to be a contract killer.

What am I getting at? A really poor segue into talking about “Iceman” (who also killed cats early on). Yep, I’m referencing the contract killer Richard Kuklinski – AKA – the “Iceman”

ICEMAN ROLE

WTF does that have to do with James Franco? You guessed it! Franco himself has what appears to be a small role in the 2013 movie about Richard Kuklinski, the contract killer. Now, I’m just a little more than excited about the prospect of this film for two reasons: Franco (for one) and an unhealthy serial killer interest as well (mostly the way they think, and the manner in which Park Dietz assesses them). Kuklinski just happens to be among my favorites when it comes to the crazy interviews he’s shared, because he’s not the typical “serial” killer. He had a sadistic side, but he also seemed to have moments of regret, and definite emotion for his family. The guy’s a dichotomy.

That being said, I half wonder how much justice this film will do to the actual Iceman story. From the trailer, I can tell there’s a lot of “bang-bang- you’re dead”, but I really hope that they add in the parts where Kuklinski got “creative”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNefNZDLqPo

“God never showed up.”

Yeah… tell me something new.

OZ

In addition to Iceman, his ubiquity in Hollywood extends to a totally different genre: Fantasy.

It’s as though he magically gains access to some pre-production list of scripts and then says to his agent, “I want to have every possible role in every film I like – big, small, supporting, or leading in this film, that film, and also this one over here…Make it happen! NOW!”, (and as he’s saying all of this, he’s simultaneously on a conference call, while painting a picture, creating an art installment, and scribbling notes away in his daily journal of thoughts that will be the seeds which ultimately bring his next masterpiece to fruition).

Sidenote… I have this theory that this movie (see below) was originally going to star Johnny Depp as the lead, but then one sunny day, James Franco sauntered onto the set, asked the director, “Hey, can I have his role”, (nodding his head in Johnny’s direction sans eye contact) and they all said, “Sure! Depp, you’re fired. Please leave”; And a stunned Depp, left, bewildered that he’d been replaced by… well, anyone. Here’s the film:

Couldn’t you see Depp playing that role? In fairness, I could see Depp doing this part, but he’s done so many like it; I’m quite sure Franco will be fantastic and inject his own interesting character into it. *Sigh* Another Redbox Rental.

REFLECTIONS

So the guy does it all. Why’s that so special? Well, the fabulous irony of it all is that back in James’ teen years, his parents (who had no background in acting whatsoever) laughed at his plans for stardom. In the end, he not only proved them terribly wrong by becoming one of the most convincing method actors I’ve ever seen, but unintentionally got them all into acting as well!

Yes – the family with no experience, who laughed at him as he practiced his “acting accents” at the drive through window of the local McDonalds at which he worked – got into all sorts of acting because of one young man’s dedication…

…which brings us back to the brother -to- brother interview with which we began.

Their shared smiles never really dissipate – except momentarily, occasionally, when one of them is either being serious or attempting to be convincing. In this case, I think it was James – his eyes go saucer-style large, his eyebrows leap toward his furrowed forehead like two terrified caterpillars, and he tries to initially feign having seen his brother’s part in “Scrubs” (or any other of his works for that matter).

Davey laughs hysterically, “No, man! You’re such a liar! That was the outtake mom made you watch. That didn’t even air. I knew you didn’t watch it!”

James grins in return, as he knows he’s been “caught”.

But what’s the guy to do? I’m a multitasker, also. I can relate.

I get stuck in my head and operate on inertia. If I’m not moving, I get lazy. If I am moving, I don’t want to stop (for fear of getting lazy). While I can’t vouch for him, I can only guess that this Type A personality of his imparts some desperate need to do anything and everything on which he can get his hands, committing to it, and inevitably burning the candle at both ends.

The only problem with that? Is this:

“I remember when we lived together,” Davey continues, “You’d never sleep on the bed. You always slept on the couch! It was like… you refused… You’d just lay on the couch and keep working until you passed out.”

“I did?” Franco laughs, as his stylist continues to preen him.

“Yeah… You’d only pass out when you could not physically stay awake anymore…”

James laughs about Davey “stealing his master bedroom” for a moment before Davey continues, “Well…You said you never liked to go in the bed because it was like… admitting failure….”

James, who is sedentary, awkwardly plays with the sock which he is about to put on. He is looking downward. After a pensive pause, he looks up, flashing that “Family Franco Grin”, and says, “I got a lot to do, man!”

Davey laughs, turning away, “I know… I know man”

Admirable as Davey finds his brother, I couldn’t help but notice this moment during the shoot:

Cry for help? Heuristic queries for little brother?

Is he “chasing the rabbit?”

If a bunny costume is all it takes, then count me in-

I digress.

In any case, maybe the endless chase of one job after the other is indeed just some Wonderland style symbolic search for that rabbit he never could quite catch as a kid…

xoxo
<3~A