James Franco Loves ‘Dirty Dancing’ and 5 More Wacky Facts

James Franco is a polarizing figure. While some fans applaud his Jack-of-all-trades approach to art, others question his sincerity and think he’s merely using his celebrity status to take advantage of the system. Regardless of his intentions, he sure does get a lot done. Between his multitudinous degrees and his numerous film projects, Franco sill found time to put together “Making a Scene with James Franco,” an AOL Originals online series wherein Franco and a bunch of pals mash up and reenact famous film scenes.

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Earlier this week, Franco sat down with Entertainment Weekly’s Tim Stack to preview the first four episodes in front of a live audience and answer fan questions via Twitter. “This is so weird,” he said right before sitting down. Though Franco appeared rather uncomfortable with the whole endeavor, never making eye contact with Stack or the audience and visibly squirming at many of the questions, he managed to answer a majority of them with a touch of humor. Here are six wacky things we learned about James Franco at the event. 

He loves “Dirty Dancing.”
“It’s actually a pretty good movie,” Franco said after the the screening of the “Dirty Dancing Dogs” episode, the mash up of the famous ’80s dance drama with “Reservoir Dogs.” “I haven’t watched it in a long time but, I like that movie. I guess I really like that idea of a camp that adults go to. Not that I really liked camp when I was young. And Swayze’s such a bad ass in it. It’s a nice combo of families and conservative things mixing with the rebel. But he’s a rebel but he’s a dancer.”

He does stuff like this to pay the bills, essentially.
“If I do this and I do other comedies, in a weird way it financially supports me so that I can pay the people that work for me. But it creates a space for me to do something that contrasts with this. Comedy creates good will. If I do things like this then it’s sort of like one for them and then I get to do maybe a Faulkner adaptation or something else for me.”

For him, the most iconic film scene is from “Taxi Driver.”
“The one where De Niro is standing in front of the mirror saying, ‘You talking to me?’ I guess it stands out for me because, as far as I know, it was a thing that was sort of discovered on set in front of the camera. For me, it’s a pure moment where the character is looking at an image of himself and we’re looking at the character, and it tells the story of the character’s insanity or his drive to become this independent militaristic force. So I guess to me that’s sort of pure cinema, or pure behavior that’s so well contextualized.” 

He would totally play Batman.
For the episode titled “Batjuice,” a mash-up of “Batman” and “Beetlejuice,” Franco took on the iconic role. He was then asked if he’d ever consider playing a character in a real superhero movie. “It felt pretty good to put on the Batman suit. I did play the Green Goblin, you know. The first ‘Batman’ movie was pretty great. As far as the best person to play Batman? I mean, they’re all kind of the same I think.”

Franco’s most realistic role was Alien from “Spring Breakers.”
When Franco was asked which of his characters most resembled his own personality, he replied, “I did this movie called ‘Spring Breakers.’ Harmony Korine was just like, ‘Don’t act, just be yourself,’ I was like thank you! I’ve actually worked with Kevin Federline. He was a really really nice guy. He doesn’t have any corn rows.” Whether or not he was serious, we’re still not sure. 

He has seen all of the ‘Twilight’ movies
“Oh yeah, I’ve seen all the ‘Twilight’s’. Team Edward! I saw the last one in Rome. It was in Italian. There were no subtitles. But I have seen them all.” 

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