90 Minutes With James Franco
The Ladies Line Up for the Gucci-Sponsored 127 Hours Premiere
127 Hours is based on the true story of a hiker who spent five days trapped under a boulder in Utah. Luckily for moviegoers, he's played by James Franco, an actor many people wouldn't mind being stuck alone with in a canyon for 90 minutes. "We're sort of banking on that," director Danny Boyle admitted at last night's Gucci-sponsored New York premiere.
Franco dieted for the role and spent long hours fused, Prometheus-style, to a big rock. "We'd let him go to the restroom, but that was it," Boyle said. And because Columbia University declined his request for a leave of absence, the actor had to work red-eye flights, catnaps in LAX, and downtime homework into the shoot. "He was reading Proust at one point, probably in original French," Boyle joked.
"It was something challenging and unusual, something I'd never done before," Franco explained. (The film barely co-stars Kate Mara and Clémence Poésy.) "Even Tom Hanks in Cast Away had a whole island to walk over and a ball to talk to," he added. A graphic scene involving a dull Swiss army knife has reportedly caused fainting during preview screenings, but that didn't faze the likes of Elizabeth Banks and Susan Sarandon, who turned up for the screening. "I'll cover my eyes if I have to," said a defiant Padma Lakshmi. Later, at the after-party at the Bunker Club, Agyness Deyn said she'd found the gory make-or-break moment more inspiring than excruciating. "The adrenaline—it was intense!"
ERROR:
