James Franco allegedly threw a fit, kicking a chair and storming off a set after he co-hosted the 2011 Oscars with Anne Hathaway.
In a recent episode of the “With Gourley and Rust” podcast, comedian Paul Rust claimed he witnessed the whole thing.
“I saw James Franco flip out once,” Rust claimed in the episode that dropped on Dec 27. “When ‘Your Highness’ came out, CollegeHumor was going to try to do some promotion, and the idea was that a group of nerds are playing Dungeons and Dragons with the stars of ‘Your Highness,’ James Franco and Danny McBride.”
He noted “this was literally two days after [Franco] had hosted the Oscars. So he was upset because the reviews were not good. He was in a bad mood.”
During the time, Franco was promoting the 2011 stoner comic fantasy flick, and during the first take of the CollegeHumor promo, Rust recalled the actor had “his head down” and was “mumbling all of his lines,” causing the footage to be “unusable.”
Rust said the promo director asked Franco, “What was that? What are you doing?”
According to the comedian, the director’s inquiry made the star “more upset.”
So, in the next take, he starts going off-script, and he goes — and it’s also, like, the script is about, it’s the joke that he’s probably tired of, which is James Franco, Renaissance man,” Rust stated.
“So, the premise was, each person picks their character and goes, ‘My character is Skibby the Great, and he’s a warlock who has these powers.’ And then it comes to James Franco, and he goes, ‘My character is James Franco, and he’s been getting into cooking chorizo.’ So, it’s sort of like he has to be self-effacing here, so that’s also part of the problem. And so, he starts doing ad-libs about other things that people say about James Franco. So he goes, but in the mumble voice — he’s still doing the mumbling thing, so he’s got his head down — he goes, ‘James Franco was high on heroin when he was hosting the Oscars last night,’” he continued.
“Then the publicist comes in and, like, leans down and goes, ‘Why are you saying that? The camera is on you right now. You shouldn’t be saying that,’” Rust explained.
He then set the record straight, saying on the podcast, “And for the record, I don’t think he was high” on Oscars night.
His co-star McBride reportedly tried to calm Franco down.
“Between takes, he’s saying to James Franco, ‘Hey, if you don’t want to do this, I don’t want you to feel forced that you have to do this,’” Rust shared. “But [Franco] keeps doing it. And then I see, it reaches a point where I see James Franco stand up, kick a chair and storm out of the stage.”
Rust alleged that Franco “never came back” and he believes the promo never “saw the light of day.”
The Post has reached out to Franco’s reps for comment.
The 83rd annual Academy Awards received negative reviews from both critics and viewers, with The Post calling it the worst Oscars ever.
Many pointed the finger at Franco and Hathaway’s lack of chemistry, calling the hosts “flat” and “mind-numbing.”
