{"id":205702,"date":"2025-11-29T01:14:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T01:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/205702\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T01:14:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T01:14:08","slug":"james-franco-talks-oscar-nominated-turn-in-danny-boyles-127-hours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/205702\/","title":{"rendered":"James Franco Talks Oscar-Nominated Turn in Danny Boyle’s ‘127 Hours’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tJames Franco<\/a> admitted nobody believed in \u201c127 Hours<\/a>.\u201d The film, directed by Danny Boyle, is a biographical drama about Aron Ralston<\/a>, who became trapped by a boulder in a Utah canyon.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDanny wanted to make it but nobody else on his team did. Everyone said it would be a disaster,\u201d he said at Italy\u2019s Torino Film Festival<\/a> where he also received the Stella della Mole award.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThen they realized the real guy had his own video camera with him \u2013 he was talking to it. That opened up another way of telling the story. He wasn\u2019t just sitting there quietly. He could externalize his inner thoughts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDesperate to escape, Ralston ultimately made the shocking decision to amputate his own arm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cJust to state the obvious, but normally, when you\u2019re making a movie, you have multiple characters. But here, because he\u2019s trapped in a canyon, there\u2019s no one to interact with. It was different to anything else I\u2019ve ever done as an actor.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was a first for everyone, Franco noted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDanny Boyle has never done anything like it and neither has [cinematographer] Anthony Dod Mantle. Nobody\u2019s made a movie like that! But despite it being about just one guy, all alone, it\u2019s still very dynamic. It feels like an action film,\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe interplay is now between the character and the environment, the character and himself, the character and death, and, on a technical level, the actor and the camera. It was there [in front of my face] the whole time. It was a whole different dance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHis first meeting with Boyle didn\u2019t go that well \u2013 \u201cMaybe he thought I wasn\u2019t as excited as I should have been\u201d \u2013 but his stint on the soap opera \u201cGeneral Hospital,\u201d which he has since described as a piece of performance art<\/a>, proved useful.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s not much dialogue in [\u2018127 Hours\u2019] but there\u2019s one big speech. I\u2019m basically saying goodbye to my family. Before that, on \u2018General Hospital,\u2019 we would shoot 80-90 pages in one day. I became very good at memorizing my lines, fast. We did it and Danny said: \u2018You\u2019re the guy.\u2019 And he gave me a hug.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOnce filming had begun, Boyle wanted him to recreate Ralston\u2019s horrific predicament.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe said: \u2018Look, you\u2019ve just been trapped. Your natural reaction would be to force your way out, so I want you to do everything you can to try to get out. Don\u2019t stop.\u2019 So I kept going and going, and going. When he finally said \u2018cut!\u2019 I think it has been 25 minutes. I was really tired and sweaty. It became very realistic, because we did everything that Aron would have done \u2013 except for cutting my arm off.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFranco ended up scoring his only Academy Award nomination for his committed performance, an event he described as \u201cso impactful.\u201d \u201cAt that time, it was almost too much to take in.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe star, who has been mired in controversy<\/a> over the last few years, still has a multitude of projects coming up, including Vincent Gallo\u2019s \u201cGolden State Killer.\u201d He has also completed \u201cThe Long Home\u201d as a director. However, he is trying to improve his workload management.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLet\u2019s just say I was a little crazy for a while,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI love 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]: \u2018I\u2019m no longer the person who has to wait for them to call me to be in their movie. I can make my own films!\u2019 This started a whole other chapter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe added: \u201cI still have that: that obsession. Let\u2019s call it that, because I\u2019m the kind of person who can become really obsessive. But I\u2019ve also learnt it\u2019s good to have balance. I had to learn its importance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Franco admitted nobody believed in \u201c127 Hours.\u201d The film, directed by Danny Boyle, is a biographical drama…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[112980,112981,18,117,19,17,90936,327,111376],"class_list":{"0":"post-205702","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-127-hours","9":"tag-aron-ralston","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-james-franco","15":"tag-movies","16":"tag-torino-film-festival"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115630339706835054","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}