>> rose: welcome to the program. tonight, a conversation with a man of many talents, james franco. >> there's nothing -- i can't work any harder than i've been working. and i -- and i -- 1% of me does it to just be able to say to people, look, i'm not a fake. back off. the other 99% of me, you know, went to school and studied those things because i want to take writing and directing and everything as seriously as i take acting. so i've heard that you've had interviews with a lot of -- >> rose: dictators. >> people. >> rose: so have you ever been asked to -- >> no! >> rose: >> -- kill anybody. >> rose: not only that, i've had no connection with people before or after the interview. most recently assad and before

that ahmadinejad. >> rose: nobody asked you to kill assad? no, no. >> you couldn't stay they did. >> rose: (laughs) >> maybe you already did. you poisoned him. >> rose: no. franco for the hour next.

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: this is not a roast. this is my greatest most elaborate art installation ever. (cheers and applause) i'm not the real guest of honor and these aren't real comedians and we're not even on a real network. (laughter) what you've seen tonight was my brilliant opus to sequester and artistic visionary and subjected to the mindless incoherent

trashing of a scattering of talentless abnormalities. i call it genius unscathed and this is my masterpiece! (cheers and applause) >> rose: james frong co-is here. he is an actor, director and art itself. he's also an author. the los angeles angels of anaheim described him as the prince of perpetual motion. his new book is a novel called "actors anonymous" and here is the trailer for the book. >> everyone is in me and i am in everyone i'm part of your consciousness. >> you don't think so? you want to deny i've made my way inside? >> it's for me to entertain you but i don't really care about entertaining you, you know what i mean? >> i used to care a lot about acting but now i see that you're only as good as your material. >> and if your material is good, you're only as good as your director. but there is so much dependent on others that i can't care about acting anymore.

>> i'm jack nicholson and marlon brando, jimmy stewart, steve mcqueen. >> i'm nicholas cage and robert pattinson, james dean and rock hudson. >> i am or in that ma shearer and lillian gish. >> i'm like a sophisticated problem. give you all the accents you want, all the air styles, wardrobes i'll say whatever you put in front of me and i expect to take pride for it. >> i used to care about how i looked. i now i don't care as much. maybe it's because i'm so handsome. >> rose: i am pleased to have james franco back at this table. welcome. >> thank you. >> rose: last time we saw each other was at brown university where you were attending rye lan school of design? >> that's right. that was a great interview, yeah. >> rose: thank you. so i just touch on this because you must get tired of talking about it. why so many thing? or why not so many things?

>> right. good question. these are thingssy admit i do a lot of things but they're all things i'd been interested in as long as i've been interested in acting. basically they all -- you know, i guess they all fall under film art and literature. those are my things. they just have different forms and what i've found is i can combine them. i can bring them together. so the book is a great example where it's a book, it's a novel. at its center is acting. so i suppose why so many, the point isn't -- some people think it's just an attention getting thing -- >> rose: creating a brand. >> creating a brand. or trying to tackle as many things as possible and it's really not that as much as being able to find the best form for the different subjects that i'm

interested in. and in something like contemporary art, i was at r.i.s.d. studying art. in that world it's fairly common and accepted for an artist to be a painter and make videos, maybe make an album, maybe write a book. and that's because, you know, the art world has just kind of moved beyond. they've moved beyond form. they've moved beyond the studio. it's kind of this post-studio world and it's been that way for decades. but when an actor does it, there's skepticism, rightly so spchlt because actors generally speaking-- or at least when you do a certain level of movie-- have a certain level of celebrity. so people are skeptical of actors using their celebrity to, you know, gain in-roads to areas that they otherwise wouldn't

have access to. so i understand all of that. but i also have done as much work and gone too as much school as, you know, anyone else. so there's nothing i can -- i can't work any harder than i've been working. and i -- and i -- 1% of me does it to just be able to say to people "look, i'm not a fake. back off." the other 99% of me went to school and studied all those things because i want to take writing and directing and everything as seriously as i take acting. >> rose: do you get a pass because you're james franco? meaning they give you a break? s people who have devoted their life to it? >> i think it goes both ways. i think there are and then there

are some forms that are more accepted paths for an actor to taken that others. so now it's generally more accepted -- you know, people are okay with actors becoming directors, you know? ben affleck won the oscar for the best picture and eastwood and kevin costner. it's -- redford. i mean, anyone -- almost anyone from the '70s that was an actor, nicholson, de niro, beatty, they've all directed and most of them have directed some very good movies. but when an actor writes a book-- not a memoir but a book of fiction-- i would say that the fives are out. before anyone has read it i'd say the guns are already out. >> rose: saying "who the hell does he think he is"? >> so when i wrote -- i wrote a

book of short stories called "palo alto" before this. >> rose: about where you grew up. >> it takes place in my hometown palo alto, california. around the time when i was a teenager about teenagers but it's a book of fiction, again. it's not a memoir. and it was fairly well accepted. i got decent reviews. but there was still -- what i was doing at the time when that first book came out about three or four years ago was trying -- i thought, i need to keep my two worlds separate. i am not going to write about acting and i want people to see me as a writer. and then i realized well, i have all this experience in the film world, almost 20 years of professional work. other writers use what they know you know? journalists who travel the world

and have some crazy experience, they'll write a book about that! they aren't going to say, well, i'm not going to write my book about that because that's my other life. >> rose: a perfect example is david ignatius. david ignatius who is a great columnist in writes about foreign affairs for the "washington post." he's also a very good novelist. >> right! >> rose: and he writes books that are made into movies and there you go. >> and i'm sure they're about foreign affairs. >> rose: they are, he writes about spies in iran and all of that. >> john grisham is going to write about lawyers. >> rose: so you're writing about what you know. do do you fear failure or not? in other words, risk taking is part who have is in -- it's part of you? it's in your d.n.a.? >> i need to do that. i feel like -- and i realized embarrassment -- fear of embarrassment can be extremely stifling. and if i think back to when i was a teenager the thing that

kept me -- i loved movies and i loved plays! i would go to san francisco and see plays. but i never engaged with acting -- i never really tried it until i was a senior and i think that was really just fear of embarrassment and then on the stage fear of a public kind of embarrassment. and once i became an actor, you know, you kind of get over shyness or everything because you have to talk to a lot of people and, you know, this kind of thing. but then the second step was, all right, if i'm going to -- i was writing, you know and doing art long before i started doing it publicly. but i knew if i'm going to put this book out or if i'm going do this art show or whatever, i'm going to have to face a lot of potential criticism or skepticism or whatever. so if this is what i really want to do, okay, this is the price i

have to pay. and it kind of got me over that. that -- and so now i -- i -- if the only thing that's holding me back from doing something is the potential for failure or embarrassment then i do it because i never want that to hold me back. >> rose: exactly. it's one thing to go write a book. it's another thing to be an actor and direct. all those things have a connection. but it's quite another thing to go to yale and say "i want to be in your graduate program." because their standards are different. it's not just write your novel and see if anybody buys it. here's a case where you have to meet high standards. first of all you've got to get admitted and then you have to stay up with-- i assume-- a certain program. otherwise their reputation is damaged. >> i'm sure some people still argue that, well, we let james franco -- do we want him associated with yale? and et cetera. but i could buy that maybe if it was the undergraduate program.

ph.d. programs are different. i mean, i'm -- they're paying know go to school. so that's a big commitment from them. and it is a lot of work. so -- for me to kind of keep up with. so that was also something i had to be very clear with myself that i wanted to do it. fortunately, i'm passed the course work phase. there's two years of courses. >> rose: now you're writing a dissertation or -- >> before i do that i have to take my oral exams. so in the english department you have to read 30 books in five subjects. so that's 150 books and then five professors will sit around and ask me questions about those 150 books. so i'm in the middle of that. i read almost a book a day and so i have my exam in january. >> rose: so how do you have time for acting and directing? >> well, there are -- there is a

lot of down time on sets. and i just use it to my full potential. i read almost a book a day. i mean, i have to -- >> rose: do you speed read or do you just know how to read? >> i read pretty fast and i also listen to audio books and i put it on the double speed setting so i read them twice as fast. i listen to them twice as fast. >> rose: speed up your hearing. >> so gary sinise is now reading steinbeck's "travel with charlie" but then it sounds like -- (laughs) >> rose: and you get the same understanding from that or even better? >> i would say the enjoyment factor goes down a little bit. but i have to read all these books for the exam so i just -- i do what i have to do. >> rose: then finally there's this. people say, you know, you are, in fact, by doing all these kinds of things, while it's broadening you as a human being, perhaps if you just focused on one you would be off the charts

as an actor. >> i mean, i -- >> rose: and you say? >> what i say to that is -- i have a lot of answers to that. i believe in hard work. i believe in honing something. this is a book so -- that i've worked on for years. probably i wrote the first material that's in that book probably four or five years ago. >> rose: when we talked at brown some of the things i see in this book i heard in that conversation with you. >> exactly. and i started writing those stories when i was at columbia and my editor, ed park, was a teacher of mine at columbia. so this is a work that's been -- you know, i don't just put it down and then throw it out -- you know, put it out there. it's been honed. but i also feel that there is only so much polishing to be done and then it becomes less

productive. there's actually a great documentary about the making of south park, strangely enough, which i think is actually a really cool show. it's called "six days to air." so they have six days for every show they make. six days -- you know, within that they write the episode, then they animate it and then they put the voices to it. six days. and one of the great things that i think it's trey parker says in there is "we've honed it down to six days. we used to take longer. but if i spent more time it would probably get a few percentage points better. but not that much. not so much that it would actually pay off." so i just feel like get it together and it will have -- the

payoff for the kind of speed is that it will have a certain amount of energy to it. it might be a little messier, but it will have vitality. and that's how i feel about certain things. that i can only hone it so much and then i'll start working the energy out of it, the vitality out of it. >> rose: this is what karina long worth of "slate" says. "this 285 page book has been branded as a novel, somewhat misleadingly. "actors anonymous" is more like a published notebook full of sketches on themes rendered in a variety of different styles, sort of like a greatist hits of what one might be left with at the end of a few years and a lot of creative writing workshops. >> (laughs) >> rose: do you agree with that? does that resonate with you? >> um -- >> rose: somewhat? >> i think the -- i think the -- i feel like that's a fairly common kind of criticism. like, oh, this is something out

of m.f.a. programs. >> rose: that's right. >> i hear that not only about myself, i hear it about everything. >> rose: m.f.a. is master of fine arts. >> it's just like if this is something that was out of an m.f.a. program, so is that bit of criticism. it's just like i've heard that about people so many times. get a new line. so i feel like that is exactly what i was trying to do. put different kinds of points of view or different approaches to a single or a collective of themes together so that it would feel sort of like it does to be an actor in hollywood. you are viewed through many different lenses. you're viewed and read through your film roles. you're viewed through legitimate journalists who ask good questions. you're viewed through gossip magazines and, you know, all the dirt of your life is brought up.

people gossip about you on social networking. all of these things are -- you're viewed through all of these lenses. so i wanted to capture that. it's supposed to be a collage. >> rose: one of the thing you do which is make fun of all of this you did a thing on instagram which is a photo taken of you kissing another guy because of all the -- that little blip of conversations about whether you were gay or not. >> yeah, yeah. >> rose: and that was, what? to take a bemused look at how crazy celebrity was? >> no. i think what i'm trying to do there is use the aesthetic of gossip blogs to make a piece of art. so one of the things that i try and do, is that i can do because of my position, is push different forms of art or creativity through channels,

through other kind of public channels. so, for example-- if this sounds pretentious, i'm sorry, but it's what i do. so i went on to "general hospital." >> rose: yes, you did. >> and i played a role of this artist/murderer named "franco." >> rose: (laughs) >> now, that was already kind of interesting because it became -- i think it was a performance art piece and when i went to -- a lot of artists that i knew at the time said "what you're doing is great, i wish i had this that public forum for my stuff." but i wanted more ownership over that piece. so i brought it to the museum of contemporary art in los angeles and we shot a special episode of general hospital at the museum of contemporary art. and then it was both an episode of "general hospital" aired on abc and then i also made a kind

of weird arty documentary that we took to festivals and now have sold to comedy central. so there you see, like, performance art going through a soap opera then going to the museum of contemporary art then going through a national network and then going through, you know finally ending up as a -- in the frame of a weird documentary. and part of the art is the framing and the reframing. so when i go on instagram and do something that is basically what these gossip blogs are doing but i'm doing it, i'm controlling it but it looks no different than the stupid photos that they take of me or try and take of me, i'm taking some ownership over it. and then they reprint it on their stupid blogs. >> rose: (laughs) they reprint it simply because it's you. >> they reprint it because of

me. i don't read the blogs anymore so i don't know what they said about it. but just the fact that they had it on their page i then have my assistants go and take a screen shot of my photo framed by their page and then i will blow that up and i will make a painting out of that. >> rose: (laughs) so that's the next step of that project. >> rose: a little bit about this. you say "in defense of myself, this is a piece of fiction. i know that my stories might sound like an autobiography and i'm not making much of an effort to hide when i call my character the actor, but isn't fiction writing about what i know? if i wrote a love story set during the civil war wouldn't i be criticized for my lack of knowledge in those areas? at least acting is something i know a little about." so you're writing what you know about. >> it was what we were talking about earlier. >> rose: and celebrity, right. >> i have a professor at yale, michael warner. he's a specialist in american

literature around -- like between revolution and the civil war. and he said -- but he's also a highly regarded year theorist. >> rose: right. >> his first book is called "letters of the republic." i think it was his thesis when he was a ph.d. student. and the it has no queer theory in it. and he said "when i realized that i could put my two worlds together i generated so much energy. that's when i became michael warner. that's when i became who i am, something fairly unique." and so what happened with my first book -- i'm very happy with the first book, but i was spending a lot of energy keeping out this other part of my life. and so i thought i'll put them both together and -- sorry.

i'll put them both together and i think a lot of energy will be generated from it. and i know that people will, you know, use this material and pull lines from it and use them against me or read them as non-fiction. but that was the case in my other book. so whether i write about acting or not, people are going to pull lines from it and say that that's me or that's the real me. but this is pointedly not a memoir. this is not a confession. it's just using what i know to create an atmosphere. to create characters. but it's not -- it's not autobiography. >> rose: a lot of people appear throughout it. daniel day-lewis is one, nicholson, brando, tarantino, chaplain. that's good company.

>> right. >> rose: there a common denominator there? >> yeah. i mean, they're all, like -- >> rose: it is who they are that's the common denominator? >> well, they're all actors, they're all incredible actors. >> rose: they were beyond actors. these were -- if you think about nicholson and brando and chaplain, they went beyond simply being actors. >> exactly. you're exactly right. so when i -- i guess what i'm trying to do is the way of using not only the fact that they're actors but everything that they stand for as forms. as generators of power and meaning that you can just say "chaplain" and it -- it already resonates a lot of different things. daniel day-lewis stands for a certain kind of discipline, devotion to work, disappearing

into roles. >> rose: right, right. >> and on top of that you kind of get this weird amalgamation of all the roles that he's played already. when you say the name, all the roles kind of flow through your head already. so if i put them in the book, a lot of work is already done just by saying that name. and i like that. i like -- i like being able to evoke some of their power just by saying their name. >> rose: talk about directing. do you think directing is a more interesting form for you than acting? >> um -- >> rose: because it's kroelled, it's collaborative. it's all of that? >> yes, you're right. you're right. >> rose: well, you've said it. >> yes, exactly. that's not the say that i don't still get a lot out of acting, but what i've found-- and here's one of the things that comes from doing multiple things is variety allows me to do the individual things better.

because when i was only acting professionally i found that i was trying to control the movies that i was acting in. i was trying to do more than my job description. because i had this urge to direct! but i was the actor. and so i had to come to an understanding that movies are -- i believe that movies work best when they were considered a director's medium. when the director is overseeing the whole picture. and so when i understood that, i had to accept -- i did a few things. i accepted the fact that when i sign on as an actor to a movie my job is to help that director achieve his or her vision. not do some self-serving thing. serve the movie as the actor. tell the story as the actor.

now, that doesn't mean i can't give suggestions, but i want the last word to be the directors-- which is one of the reasons that it's so crazy to me that, you know, i get blamed for the oscars. i was not the director of the oscars! but anyway -- >> rose: no, no, stay on that form because you did get blame for that and how do you treat that criticism? as saying it's unfounded? >> i think it's fine. you know what? i like that there's something that people can just point to and go after. like, they need something so they have the oscars. and i don't care, if they want to make fun of me for the oscars i don't care! i never dreamed about being a great oscar host so people need a thing and it's great. it's the oscars and it doesn't affect me and it's something people can always -- >> rose: does any part of you want to do them again so you can show them "i can do this, too"? >> i would do it again if seth rogan was my co-host. >> rose: (laughs) >> and it would be a good show.

>> rose: he was good. >> that's one of the reasons i was asked. seth and i went on the previous year and did a bit as our characters in "pineapple express" and it killed and that was one of the reasons i was asked to host. i guarantee if i hosted the oscars with seth rogan it would kill! it would kill! >> rose: there you go, oscar committee. so as soon as ellen does it next time -- >> i think ellen would be great. >> rose: i do, too. i want to talk about directing. tell me about "as i lay dying" a novel about william faulkner about going to take someone for their final resting place. >> this way! here! the fort is over here! come on! >> right here!

no, wait! >> go back and walk on the bridge, you let me on this. >> walk back across the bridge and meet us on the other bank. >> why are they talking to each other? >> there's some loose holes. come on! >> take the rope around the other side, man. there ain't nobody but we got one to drive and one to balance. >> i don't care what we do just so long as we do something! sitting here not doing a [no audio] thing. >> meet us on the other side. can you do that? >> come on. >> you might as well hop off now. >> no, i'll stay. i'll take two of us. >> all right, i'm on it. come on! come on! come on, then! you can come to me, all right? come on! >> watch it! >> there's another hole! let the rope go! >> let that rope out. let it go, go! come on!

go! (horse screaming) >> people say all actors want to direct because they want the control. it's not about that for me. i'm a huge believer in collaboration. >> rose: i've heard you say that >> but the three things i like to control when i direct that i do get to control when i direct is the subject matter. >> rose: right. >> who i work with. >> rose: exactly. >> as far as cast and crew. >> rose: and crew. >> and the approach. right? how are we going to tackle this subject matter? >> rose: i thought you'd also say in terms of approach the final cut and the editing. editing is where you can make it -- >> yes. i ultimately get final cut but once those three things are in motion it's -- you know, i have my crew, i have my cast, i have the subject and we have the script and we have an idea of how we're going to shoot it and a plan to put it together. then i open it up. i work with people who i trust and i believe in and i want them

to contribute and so the real enjoyment of being a director is all the creative conversations and collaborations you get with all these variety -- this great host of creative people. and as an actor the you get to have some of those conversations but mostly they're with your director and the other actors. but as the director you get to talk to everybody. it's why i love that. >> rose: and you get to meld it into your vision as well. >> but, again, i like to take -- i like to think that i have a light, guiding touch once those three things are in motion. that i really do depend on my cinematographer to help make it look good. i depend on my editor to put it together in a -- the way i want -- one of the things that danny

boyle said to me when we did "127 hours" is if you're a dictatorial director what you -- you know, you can demand what you want but the down side is you might get exactly what you want. >> rose: (laughs) exactly! >> and you won't open up the possibility for other ideas to come in, ideas that you didn't think about. and film is a collaborative medium. it involves so many people. if you cut off those tails and say "i'm controlling every step of the way," then it's going to be, you know, limited to your vision. >> rose: mike nichols once said to me that hear's what i expect from actors. i want them to surprise me. >> and i want actors to surprise me and i want every person on the crew to surprise me. i want the wardrobe person to come up with awesome costumes. i want the hair styles to be good but i want them to -- you

know, i don't know hair styles. i want them to bring me the good stuff. so i want every department to do that. >> rose: tell me about "spring breakers." >> (laughs) "spring breakers" is probably my favorite movie that i've ever acted in. i think -- i think it's tough for some people to see how innovative and amazing that movie is. but harmony curran, the director turned -- he took the film medium and he made a film based on technomusic or the -- he structured it along the lines of technomusic meaning the scenes are fluid. they flow into each other, the way it's edited, you know? and so you'll be in one scene and then it will jump ahead to a scene and then go back to this

scene. that's like -- that's like a remixed song or something. the way he uses repetition. repetition of the audio cues, repetition of visuals is also like -- like a hip-hop song or something like that. and -- i could go on. the way it was shot. and benoit debbie, the cinematographer, the use of neon. then as far as my contribution it was just my favorite role. >> you kids want to be a doctor, you know? i just wanted to be bad! they kicked me out of school i thought that was great. i don't have to go to your school, that was the best thing in the world! some people, they want to do the right thing. i like doing the wrong thing! everyone's always telling me, yo you've got to change.

i'm about stacking change, y'all. stacking change! that's it. money! the good old american dream, y'all. >> rose: alien is the supporting role. he is the character -- it's about four college students that go on spring break in florida and then they meet up with this guy alien who -- they think they want to be set loose, to be liberated from the rules of -- that they normally live by and that's what spring break represents to them. kind of almost -- they regard that liberation sigh so highly that they almost see spring break as a sort of religious rite. and then in comes this kind of dark guru, alien, who really -- they want liberation, well, he brings them so far across the lines of, you know, civilized mores that they kind of lose themselves. >> my name is alien.

my real name is al but truth be told i ain't from this planet, y'all. >> alien? >> that's what they call me. >> why are you here? >> i saw y'all in there, you look like nice people. thought maybe i'd bail you out. >> why? >> i don't know. come on, y'all, why you acting suspicious? get in. >> where are we going? >> we'll go wherever y'all want. >> rose: party. >> you got the right idea. come on. i'll be your chauffeur. >> to me it is a great metaphor or kind of parallel narrative for the way that we live now. that our lives are so kind of porous and fluid and the way that we all kind of interact with each other and, you know, the way things just -- you know, you can draw up anything on the

internet. people will film absolutely anything and post it and we all look at it. and how -- what we regard as civilized or whatever just kind of deteriorates or kind of dissolves. but there's also kind of a beauty to that. there is a beauty to the increased communication. the way that communities are formed on the internet that would never have been formed before and all of that. so this movie captures all of it. it captures the beauty of it and at the same time it shows the ugliness of it. and i just think it's a masterpiece. >> rose: and what about the sal mineo role? the movie in it is a feature film about the last day in his life. >> yes. so i did a movie -- i directed a movie called "sal" over two years ago.

we took it to the venice film festival. >> it's going to be fabulous. it's going to be something that from my experience has never ever been seen before. >> rose: what do you mean by never ever been seen before? >> i just feel like -- i mean, we're starting to evolve a little bit but i feel like the way i want to make this film no one's had the balls to make it the way i want to make it. >> rose: and how you want to make it? how would you characterize it? >> i want to make it realistic? >> slick? >> realistic. >> slick? realistic. sorry, realistic. give me realistic. i need to know what realistic means. that actually kind of scares me, the realistic part. i want to hear it from you. >> the book is nothing but gritty beautiful realistic truth. and i feel like a lot of movies are being made about horrifying situations and circumstances.

but when they're being shown and when the stories are being told they're all of a sudden watered down. everything is all of a sudden soft and you're talking about something horrifying but you're looking at it and it's not so horrifying anymore. it's actually quite pleasant. >> sal mineo was a two-time oscar nominee i think before he was 20. he got nominated for "rebel without a cause" he was probably 15 opposite james dean and he got nominated for exodus. he was also a singer. i didn't know this until i did the movie. i guess he would fill like arena you know? he was sort of i don't know a justin bieber of his time and then when he got older his star faded a little for several reasons. he sort of came out of the closet.

he wasn't the cute young kid anymore. and he did a couple movies that at the time i guess were controversial but you look at them now and they're pretty tame. and so he found himself in the mid-'70s in his '30s kind of struggling, still very passionate about acting and movies but having a hard time, much harder time than he did when he was younger. and then he was murdered. he was stabbed to death in front of his apartment on holloway in the heart of hollywood. like right near -- if you know holloway, it's right near the center of hollywood. and they didn't catch his murderer for i think a year and a half.

and so what happened was the gossip blog -- not the blogs, the gossip magazines just speculated. there was no journalistic integrity or anything. just "mineo killed by gay lover" or "mineo killed in drug scandal there was no validity to that at all other than they knew he was gay and i guess maybe he partied every once in a while. but he wasn't an addict or anything. and so later a woman called the police and said "my boyfriend who's now in jail for another crime was bragging when that -- when those news stories about sal mineo's murder came out he was bragging they was one who killed him. he was at the apartment just robbing an apartment and sal mineo walked in upon him at the wrong moment at the wrong time." and he stabbed him. and so he was convicted of mineo

murder. but people -- that was over 30 years ago and still people that i talk to say oh, you did a movie about sal mineo? didn't his lover kill him? it was drugs or something? his memory is still tainted. now that wasn't the only reason i wanted to make the movie to set the record straight. to me i saw -- there was a new biography about him that had come out. i thought how would i do this? i did an art piece about natalie wood and i played james dean and i thought oh, it would be cool to do something about sal. and i thought his situation was a great kind of tragedy. and i've heard people talk about

this. the tragedy of the artist who can't practice his art. and that was sal because he was living -- now days you'd say, well, sal, go get a video camera and go make your own movies or whatever. and he probably would. but at that time movies and television shows were still kind of a rarefied thing and you had to be on the inside to kind of do it. and there was an actor who was still very, very passionate about what he did but couldn't practice hit in the same way. so i wanted to kind of capture that, the tragedy of that. >> rose: this book is called "actors anonymous, a novel by james franco." what's next? >> what's next? a lot's next. i'm doing a -- i'll run down the list. there's a -- i adapted a book by cormac mccarthy called "child of

god." >> rose: oh, yeah, i know about that. >> very dark, about neck roe feel ya but very good and we got very good reviews. i think it will be released in february. >> rose: who did the screenplay? >> i did with my producing partner but based on cormac's book. it's one of his very early ones. i directed a movie based on the childhood of charles bird flu cow ski which i'm hoping to premier at sun dance in january. >> there was a movie about him wasn't there? >> there's been a few. there was a great one with mickey rourke. >> rose: that's the one i know. >> there's one -- oh, man. i'm such a jerk. ben garza a played him once. i think there's. matt dillon played him. it's funny. matt dillon was really good but

matt dillon is still like such a handsome guy and poor charles bukowski was played with the worst acne ever. and so i felt like matt dillon was doing everything to capture the character but, like, they needed to do more to the surface in his face because he's so handsome. so i don't play charles bukowski. not to say i'm as handsome as matt dillon but i don't play. and i just directed "sound and fury" at faulkner adaptation. >> where? >> in mississippi. and then the last thing i'll talk about is i'm now filming a movie called "the interview" directed by seth rogan and mame goldberg. and i play a t.v. host. >> rose: do you really. >> yes. >> rose: so what do you want to say about that? >> well, i was talking to your producer, actually, and maybe you can relate to the situation.

i don't want to give too much away but i play a t.v. host not of your stature. actually, i'm one of your competitors trying to get legitimacy but i'm a bit of a goof. the character's name is dave skylark. so i get an interview with someone and the c.i.a. wants me to take him out. so i've heard that you've had interviews with a lot of -- >> rose: dictators. >> so have you ever been asked to kill anybody? >> rose: no! not only that. i've had no connection before the interview or after the interview with any of the people. most recently assad but before that ahmadinejad. >> nobody asked you to kill assad? >> rose: no, no. >> you couldn't say if they did! (laughs) maybe you already did, you poisoned him. >> no. no. but the security, too, you'll find is amazing. you can bring no cameras in. they work very tight security if

someone other than -- >> didn't have any ricin to put in -- >> rose: no, no. you've been watching "breaking bad." >> oh, that's the other thing i want to ask you about! so i think that's an interesting parallel. so you have a part in the last season of "breaking bad." >> not only that, the penultimate episode right before the last episode. >> it's a very important moment because it turns the characters' path. >> rose: exactly. >> and you are actually interviewing these people that run this company called gray matter and they were walter white's old partners that kind of stole the idea from him, i guess. so in that sense you could say that charlie rose was using himself and kind of looking a little silly because you're interviewing these people that all of "the view"ers no are thieves. >> rose: right. >> but you're just taking them at their word.

and i think -- not to say -- you don't come off bad. nobody will doubt your integrity. but i think it's sort of similar to the way i use james franco in the book. that that james franco does weird things, does things that in life i would like to think that i wouldn't do. >> rose: you know why i do it? i do it -- first of all i didn't get paid. >> you're a fan of the show. >> rose: vince gilligan and i like bryan and everybody. i did it because i was a huge fan of the show. sy did it because it's fun. and i've done this a number of times. you understand acting better and therefore i understand who you are better. i understand the experience of what you have to. do i understand how hard it is to do it, too. >> rose: let me ask you this -- >> i know a lot of good directors who've said to me -- like robert altman had a huge respect for actors and said "it's damn hard to act." >> i worked with altman, i love

altman. >> rose: right. but let me ask you this because you're very good on it but you're playing yourself. >> rose: right. >> so i just did a movie called "this is the end" with seth rogan and we all played at least versions of ourselves. at least we're named after ourselves. so when you play charlie rose -- >> rose: yes. >> there must be stuff that people ask you to do that you won't do because you think -- >> rose: i wouldn't do it. >> >> "charlie rose would never do that. ". >> rose: i don't think of it like that. i wouldn't do it for whatever reason. but people have said that to me. you know, you shouldn't do this or that because who you are would not do that. i know i'm not so conscious of that. i've also been asked to do acting. robert redford once asked know do a part in the film but not play myself. >> rose: wow. >> in the end i wasn't very good i'm sure but i did a test for him and he said?

the end i can't do this because he was also acting and directing in the film and he said in the end people will see you and not the character. you're not that good so people won't see you, they'll see you and not the character. and i'm asking more than i have time to help you get through which is making the leap so people don't see charlie rose, they see the character. so that's an issue. but when i approached this, this is more than i want to say about this, i basically try to -- it was scripted. i followed the script. and i secondly loved everybody that was there and i just tried to be as good as i could and make it as real as i could because it's not real for me to read a script. it's real for me to talk to you the way i am now. that's real. >> right. >> rose: because i don't know what i'm going to say next. in the script you know what you're going to say next and you have to make it real. as bill nye said to me, you have

to say lines as if you have just thought them. and all of that is a learning experience. >> i agree. that's why it can be difficult for -- you would think that it would be easy for people to just play themselves if they're not trained as actors. >> it's not. >> but it's not because often you're asking them to say scripted lines and in life they're not saying scripted lines. >> rose: that's what it is. the other thing to say about all of this is i have more than one job. sy admire what you do. it's clear. no matter why you're doing it -- you're out here pushing the edges of different things. you're not holding yourself out and saying "i'm the best ever." you're just saying this is something i want to do. this is something i want to bring to bear and try and because i can i will. that's it. >> right. i also feel like if i held myself -- it sort of goes with that embarrassment thing.

i sort of held myself back because i am not the best at everything i do i wouldn't do anything. >> exactly. >> so as a creative person you lead to accept the level that you're at. and just say if this is the book i can write now than just write it and it will speak to certain people. it doesn't need to be in the canon every time. >> rose: the whole notion in the end you will regret what you didn't do rather than what you did in the end. you will always regret what you didn't do. even if you fall on your face! suck get up and try again. >> rose: i agree. >> and i don't think people are as critical of failure as you might imagine and that's why they love comeback stories. they love somebody that gets up off the ground and says "i can win." they love somebody that loses and then comes back and wins the next year. they love come from behind. all of that is sort of what america sort of likes.

>> rose: and i would say all of that is also a little or more or less contingent on do you have good intentions. what are your intentions? and that was one thing sean penn said to me early on. i can't remember -- there's a race movie, i always forget the name. bubble dome or something. i don't know, something. there's a -- two drivers get together in the car for this cross country race and there's an italian driver that that grabs the rear vie mirror and he rips it off and he says "where we're going we don't need look behind us." and shawn said that's how you should feel. if you believe in it, know you did it for the right reason and this applies to any project and it doesn't get accepted like you wanted to, doesn't make a lot of money or whatever, just keep driving because you know you did it for the right reasons. >> rose: he's a good friend.

that's the way he views his life as you know. so does johnny depp. same thing. this is called "actors anonymous." all the movies coming out we have talked about. the roles that we have been talking about. thank you for joining us. thank you. pleasure. james franco for the hour. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

this is "nightly business report" with tyler math son and su matheson and susie daly. >> our ratings service provides objective, independent ratings daily on over 4,-300 stocks. learn more thestreet.com. >> on a high note stocks rally ending at record highs on the dow and s&p putting a capper on 2013 and huge gains for investors. the nasdaq up nearly 40%. the s&p's best year since 1997. the dow, best since 1995. the january effect. old man winter may be rough on us, but the first month of the year tends to be kind to