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James Franco talks to Playboy about Oscar debacle – including dropped comedy bit that would have featured Cher!

There are not a lot of people who can successfully host a major awards show. Neil Patrick Harris is a genius at it and Jimmy Fallon, Hugh Jackman and Sean Hayes have also been big hits in recent years.

But the pairing of James Franco and Anne Hathaway to host this year’s Oscars was, at times, painful to watch. While Hathaway gamely got through the night with smiles, enthusiasm and endless dress changes, Franco just seemed disinterested after a certain point.

In a new interview with Playboy, he talks about the experience and much more. Here is a portion of the interview:

PLAYBOY: Some might question how seriously you took co-hosting the Oscars show with Anne Hathaway.

FRANCO: When they asked me to do it, I laughed and said, “How am I going to get out of this?” I had one of the best acting experiences working with [director] Danny Boyle on 127 Hours, and we made something great. The studio was making a push for my best actor nomination, and people had been talking about it. At the time I thought no one had won an Oscar the year they hosted the show—I learned later that David Niven had, about 50 years ago—and I thought my hosting the show would cut down my chances, take some of the pressure off and say to people, or at least to myself, “You’re not going to worry about this.” I had done a bit for the Oscars before with Seth Rogen that was a big hit. I felt confident I could do it. I mean, what are the host’s responsibilities? You have an opening monologue, maybe a bit or two in the middle of the show, and then the rest is just reading names. They knew I could rehearse only on weekends because of school, but how much do you have to rehearse? They told me they knew I wasn’t Chris Rock and that they had designed the show around me.

PLAYBOY: How did it go so wrong?

FRANCO: It’s hard to talk about because it’s like assigning blame—not a fun thing to do. 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.”

PLAYBOY: Many knocked you for appearing blasé, bored, out of it, having little chemistry with Anne Hathaway.

FRANCO: 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.

PLAYBOY: Why did you tweet during the show?

FRANCO: 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. No host has ever done that—given you that kind of alternative glimpse. 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.

PLAYBOY: Bruce Vilanch was presumably one of many writers for the Oscars show who thought having you don Marilyn Monroe drag was a good idea.

FRANCO: I was so pissed about that I was deliberately going to fall onstage and hopefully my dress would fall off or something—they couldn’t blame that on me; I was in high heels. The plan had been that I was going to sing as Cher and then Cher was going to come out onstage; that got axed when Cher and the song from Burlesque weren’t nominated. I told them, “Look, this is the thing people are going to talk about, the images they will take away from the show.” I mean, think about it—Anne Hathaway sang a song about Hugh ­Jackman, who not only wasn’t nominated, I don’t think he even had a movie out last year. So whatever. I just didn’t want to fight anymore, even when they said, “You’ll come out as Marilyn Monroe. It’ll be funny.” Me in drag is not funny. Me in drag as Cher trying to sing like her is a thing. That didn’t happen, so then I just didn’t want to argue anymore. I was going with their program; I wanted to do the material they gave me, not be one of the many cooks doing the writing. There were a lot of cooks who shouldn’t have been cooking but were allowed to. There were some cooks my manager tried to bring in, like Judd Apatow, who wrote some very funny stuff that wasn’t used.

TOMORROW: More from the Playboy interview focusing on speculation about Franco’s sexuality.

FILE UNDER: Awards

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