James Franco and David Letterman share Academy Award hosting experiences when the actor visits the LATE SHOW with DAVID LETTERMAN, Friday, April 1.
Letterman, host of the Academy Awards in 1995, congratulated Franco on hosting the Oscars with Anne Hathaway in February. “So, I wanted to ask you,” Franco asked Letterman, “how was your experience?” “It was horrible…” Letterman replied. “Yes, I can’t even remember what it was. It was horrible. I was so bad that they talked for a while about shutting down the motion picture industry.” “Come on!” Franco said. “I was God awful,” Letterman said. “But they didn’t say you were stoned,” Franco said. “Oh, I quit reading, maybe they – I wish I was,” Letterman joked. “I wish I was,” Franco said. “Is that what people said, that you were under the influence?” Letterman asked. “People said I was under the influence,” Franco said. “Now why would they say that?” Letterman said. “I’ve thought about it,” Franco said. “I think I know why. Because, I love her, but Anne Hathaway is so energetic, I think the Tasmanian Devil would look stoned standing next to Anne Hathaway…She has a lot of energy.” “Oh, by comparison, yeah…She’s very buoyant, yes, very ebullient,” Letterman said. “But, no, truthfully,” Franco added, “I think I actually – I haven’t watched it back – maybe I had low energy. I honestly played those lines as well as I could…”
Letterman asked the Franco why he would even care about the criticism, and Franco said, “It’s complicated because, no, 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? But here’s the hypocritical thing: leading up to the Oscars, I couldn’t hear enough about how, ‘Oh, people don’t care about the Oscars anymore, it’s dead, it’s boring, it’s at the end of a long awards season, who cares about it?’ Well, as soon as you don’t host the way they want you to, they suddenly care and they won’t shut up about it. Suddenly, I can’t hear enough about a show they don’t care about.” “Well, I can tell you what will happen,” Letterman joked. “There will be, I think for you, a modicum of embarrassment, which you shouldn’t feel. That will pass. You’ll go into a period of numbness, and then you’ll become, rightly so, defiant…” Franco’s entire interview, including more Oscar-hosting talk between him and Letterman, can be seen on the LATE SHOW Friday (11:35 PM-12:37 AM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.
The LATE SHOW with DAVID LETTERMAN is a production of Worldwide Pants Incorporated. Barbara Gaines, Matt Roberts, Jude Brennan, Maria Pope, Eric Stangel, Justin Stangel and Rob Burnett are the executive producers.
Official CBS Web site: http://www.cbs.com/late_night/late_show/