James Franco and Marla Sokoloff
Discuss High School, Toilet Humor,
and the Making of their New Movie,
Whatever It Takes
Interviewed by Max Tremblay
"I always wanted to get into acting since I was young, it was
just that I was inhibited by fear of rejection," says James Franco,
star of the upcoming romantic comedy Whatever It Takes, a story
of two guys from different social circles joining forces to snag
their dream girls in the last few weeks of their senior year of
high school. "I had huge buck teeth, and my parents had to manipulate
me into getting braces. I didn't want to get them, but my mom
said I'd never be an actor."
Fortunately for Franco, he doesn't have to worry too much about
such things anymore. In addition to his starring role in Whatever
It Takes, he has a recurring supporting role in the critically
acclaimed television series 'Freaks and Geeks,' a show that, he
says, echoes his own high school experience. "I was a little freak,
a little geek. High school was a big party the first couple of
years, but that gets old, so I broke away and just was a loner.
I did a lot of painting, and I was a member of a local art league."
This is a far cry from his character in Whatever It Takes in
which he plays Chris, a dufus-jock trying to win the heart of
an intellectual girl. "I knew the basic things Chris didn't. I
knew that we had a school theatre, for example, and how to spell
'conceited.' I think I'm a little more well read than Chris. I
certainly wasn't a jock.
"The acting bug apparently bit him early on in high school. "My
girlfriend at the time was in the Drama Club, and she was asked
to do a one act [play] with some drama geek. She had to make out
with him on stage, and that was a devastating blow. I begged her
and begged her with tears in my eyes not to do it. She did it
anyway, so to get her back I joined the club and did a couple
plays."
His costar, Marla Sokoloff, who plays Maggie, the intellectual
courted by Chris, holds a similar passion for the art form, saying
that she was "born wanting to do this." She got her start at the
famed San Francisco acting program ACT, which puts on plays locally
while also serving as a school for young actors. As it turns out,
a prominent agent caught one of Marla's plays and suggested that
she move to Los Angeles to try her luck. Her mother was reluctant,
and rejected the offer at first. "I always complained: 'Mom, please!
I can't believe you said 'no!'' After about a year and a half
of this, she couldn't stand it anymore." The two made the move
to Los Angeles for pilot season, the time of year when pilot episodes
are shot for prospective new TV series, when Sokoloff was about
eleven. "We wound up never leaving.
"Sokoloff also appears as Lucy Hatcher on the Emmy-award winning
series 'The Practice,' an experience she says is much different
than making movies. "On my show, I'm the youngest one, so going
from being on a show where everybody was over thirty to doing
the movie a few weeks later where everyone was about twenty was
really cool. It was like summer camp. 'The Practice' is definitely
fun, and we have a great time together, but we're a bit more serious."
Her co-star, Franco, agrees: "For me the experiences are different
because the style of the films is completely different. I mean,
TV is just so fast, and particularly because that's what 'Freaks
and Geeks' goes for. It's almost documentary style, so everything
is very fast and off the cuff. We'll improvise scenes on the spot,
and someone will say 'Okay, that's it, that's fine.' With the
movie, you have a lot more time, and it seemed like the producers
really like to stick to the script and perfect what they had,
as if to elevate this life into this fantasy world. It's almost
like a heightened high school."
While still revelling in this fantasy world, the movie remains
strikingly true-to-life, giving an extremely accurate portrayal
of high school life and the things regular kids worry about.
This seems to be missing from most teen comedies and this is
what Franco thinks sets Whatever It Takes apart. "From what I've
seen of other teen films, Whatever It Takes seems to have more
heart and emotion. In some of the other classical reinterpretations,
they are so stuck on sticking to plot point by plot point from
the original text, that they rush through the film without having
the characters explore what's really going on." Whatever It Takes
itself is a 'classical reinterpretation,' borrowing most of its
key plot points from the play "Cyrano de Bergerac." The film however
takes the play in an entirely different direction, and does it
so successfully that it is almost unrecognizable as an update
of a classic. Franco agrees: "In Whatever It Takes, partly because
we've turned off from the original script so much, we're afforded
time to just watch these characters be affected on screen."
Another factor that helps to separate Whatever It Takes from
the current crop, Franco says, is that "the director wanted to
get actors that weren't necessarily comedic. He wanted to just
roll with comedic situations with regular actors, and I think
we achieved that very well."
One thing that Whatever It Takes does have in common with many
of the newer films for older kids is a heavy reliance on humor
of the bathroom variety. There are scenes in which the protagonist
gets thrown up on while on a date, a male suitor has an encounter
with his significant other's foot fungus, and a sex-ed class is
taught with a person-sized phallic symbol. Also included are shots
of the girls' locker room, a pre-requisite for teen-oriented films
ever since the classic Porky's.
For the most part, Marla Sokoloff embraces this brand of humor,
and defends its use in the film. "Teens think that's funny, and
hopefully that's the group of people who see it. In the case of
Ashley Grant (a female character with the afore-mentioned fungus
problem), there's a point where you say 'Okay, how can somebody
be this grotesque?' but I think it adds to the movie. American
Pie was pretty hardcore, and I thought that was funny.
"Again, Franco agrees: "Yes, there's toilet humor, and in some
parts the director was even saying, 'Okay, do we need this? Do
we want to go that road? Do we want to cheapen it like that?'
but I don't think that defines the movie, or even most of the
humor. I think most of the humor comes from the unlearned jock
trying to fit his mouth around these poetic words that just sound
weak to him, and this artistic-souled guy trying to act macho.
I think that's where most of the humor is derived from. It's not
just cheap, going for easy laughs."
While the two young actors are very busy right now, whether it
be doing publicity for Whatever It Takes or reading over scripts
looking for potential projects, Sokoloff still has goals for higher
education. "I graduated high school while we were shooting. I
really want to go to college. I was going to go this semester,
actually, because I was going to study journalism. David E. Kelly,
(creator of 'The Practice,') said I could go at night once a week
and he would work around it, but things got so crazy this year
because I did another movie right after this one. It's really
time consuming. I have a couple friends in college right now,
and they can't even handle the schedule, so I'm thinking maybe
when 'The Practice' is done I'll take some time. It kind of depends
on where I am at that time."
We ended the interview by discussing the pair's favorite actors
and actresses. "I'd kill to work with Meryl Streep," said Sokoloff.
"She's my favorite. I saw her at the Golden Globes and I wanted
to go talk to her, but I couldn't. Also, Jodie Foster is really
nice. She came over [at the Golden Globes] and told us she loves
the show. As far as younger actors, I like Angelina Jolie a lot,
and Reese Witherspoon."
While Sokoloff's choices are more traditional, Franco seems to
favor actors from alternative schools of thought. He loves Benecio
Del Toro, for his "pure creativity and guts. My experience is
that a lot of times directors are a little adverse to some of
the extreme choices that he's made, as far as speech patterns
and these wacky characters he's come up with." In addition, he
admires Jack Nicholson, "just for how raw and how personal he
makes his roles. They seem so similar, but he just seems to expand
on this wonderful personality that never seems to dry up. I hope
to be able to bring out myself in my roles as expertly as he does."
With both of their careers just now starting to pick up, Franco
and Sokoloff seem right on their way to doing so.
