14 DAY TRIAL // James Franco and Anne Hathaway were the hosts of this year’s Oscar Awards and, while everything else about the ceremony went OK, the two were much criticized for how they fared, Franco in particular. As far as he’s concerned, he did his best, he says.
The actor broke his long silence on David Letterman (see the video below) and, of course, the topic of the Oscars did come up.
Letterman can relate to Franco’s predicament, because he too did a lousy job as an Oscars host. In fact, he was so bad, he thought they would be “shutting down the motion picture industry,” he jokes.
Still, James points out, at least no one called Letterman a stoner like it happened to him.
“They didn’t say you were stoned. People said I was under the influence,” James tells David. Indeed, many chose to believe Franco had smoked weed backstage and that’s why he appeared so absent-minded throughout the entire Oscarcast.
That was not the case, though, he explains. Anyone would look mellow next to Anne Hathaway, because she’s very energetic, and perhaps this explains why people assumed he was stoned.
“I love her, but ... I think the Tasmanian Devil would look stoned standing next to Anne Hathaway. I haven’t watched it back. Maybe I had low energy. I honestly played those lines as well as I could,” the actor says in his defense.
He never aimed to be the greatest Oscar host ever, but that’s not to say that he messed up on purpose.
“I never dreamed of being, like, the best Oscar host ever. It was never on my list of things to do. It doesn’t mean I didn’t care and it doesn’t mean I didn’t try, right?” Franco says.
Letterman agrees – and even has a few words of consolation for the actor who should, as he puts it, emerge from this “rightly so, defiant.”
Check out the video below to see James Franco’s Oscar explanation on David Letterman. Enjoy.