2. Franco In The Third Person
Another strange thing Franco has started doing is speaking in the third person. He's now separated himself, personally, from the actor taking on the role (*feels like it's getting crowded in here). So if you're a little confused, let me sum it up. There's Franco the Performance Artist, Franco the Actor and finally the character he's playing. Hope you're keeping up? Perhaps 127 Hour director Danny Boyle can shed some light on the process for us:
"He's turned his celebrity into a form of performance art. While we were shooting the film, he would sometimes ask me, 'What do you want him to do?' I would say, 'What do you mean?' He would say, 'What do you want from him in this scene?' 'You mean your character?' 'No, no. Franco. What do you want from Franco?' He was talking about himself in the third person. I said, 'Well, I think he should be more emotional.' And he said, 'Oh, I can get him to do that.' And then he'd do the scene and he'd be amazing. He turned on this extraordinary performance. He really does hold himself like a tool, to be used by the director for the benefit of the story."
I'm starting to sense a case of split personalities here, or maybe Franco has developed a methodology for keeping the celebrity persona at a healthy distance from his own private personal one. Maybe I'm being too hard on the guy, perhaps he's not crazy after all...