Recently I've been looking for something new. The past few projects I've worked on, I keep getting cast as the asshole. I promise I'm a nice guy and not the asshole that everyone keeps seeing.
What I realized with Funny or Die is that I could take it into my own hands. On a much smaller scale, I think these videos are an accurate representation of who I am. As weird as they may be, I'm at least proud of them, and it showed that I do have a slightly different voice. I can't tell you how often people bring up these videos in interviews, and I'm so happy to talk about them because we created them from the ground up.
In terms of the production company, my brother and I are very drawn toward projects that do feel slightly outside the box. And at the same time are accessible enough that they could draw a slightly wider audience.
As much as I love acting and I hope to be doing it for a long time, it almost feels more natural for me to be a producer. I came into all of this because I'm a fan of movies and I wanted to find any way I could to be a part of it all. I happened to take the acting route but it could have been a million different ways in. Now that I'm producing it's just really fun for me to work with people that I really admire and put people together who I think will work well together. Just having a little more control.
I think that I probably break on set more than I make other people break. I've realized recently that, in my everyday social life, I'm a very easygoing person, but when it comes to work, I'm pretty type - A. I'm very focused and I take it maybe too seriously sometimes. So, when I'm on set, even when there are really funny people that I'm in the scenes with, I'm generally good at not breaking too often.
When I'm improvising, I'm out of my head. I've done a lot of projects recently where there hasn't been a script. It's all been based on outlines. At first, that's terrifying, just because you don't have the words in front of you and you don't know how it's going to come out, but that's what's really exciting about it. You don't know what's going to happen. It really forces you to listen to the other people, and I think the most natural acting comes out of that.
There's always the day where you do the effort noises, so there's a lot of grunts, huffing and puffing, pretending like you're hopping over things, pretending like you're getting hit, and pretending like you're kicking. If any of that was recorded, it's some of the silliest stuff I'll ever do, as an actor, but it's fun and liberating, in a way, 'cause no one can see me. I videotape myself doing it sometimes, to send to my friends just to remind us how ridiculous our jobs are.
In general, the few directors that I've worked with that I really respect have taught me a lot about who I am and they've opened me up as an actor. I want to take some of that to apply it to when I'm directing actors.
I wouldn't be where I am without these Funny or Die videos in general. When I was first starting out, I would take roles just to get the experience, but not exactly because I believed in the projects I was doing.
I'm a small shifty kind of guy.
When I think of myself, I'm definitely... I'm not like a comedian.
For example, for me, my brother helped me get a manager, which I don't take for granted. It's tough getting a manager, let alone one that actually cares about you and is smart. But from there, no one's going to cast me just because I'm James Franco's little brother.
