Paul Rust has revealed he saw James Franco “flip out” after the reviews came in for his critically-panned Oscars hosting gig alongside Anne Hathaway.
Franco and Hathaway hosted the Academy Awards together in 2011, which Hathaway later said she regretted.
Rust, best known as the star of Netflix’s Love, recalled filming with Franco days after the awards ceremony on a recent episode of his “With Gourley and Rust” podcast.
“I saw James Franco flip out once,” claimed Rust. “When Your Highness came out, CollegeHumor was going to try to do some promotion, and the idea was that a group of nerds are playing Dungeons and Dragons with the stars of Your Highness, James Franco and Danny McBride.”
Stoner comedy Your Highness starred Franco and McBride opposite Natalie Portman as a trio on a quest to kill an evil sorcerer (played by Justin Theroux).
Rust said that filming took place “literally two days after [Franco] had hosted the Oscars.
“So he was upset because the reviews were not good. He was in a bad mood.”
As Rust recalled, during the first take of the sketch Franco had “his head down” and was “mumbling all of his lines.”
After the director asked Franco what he was doing, Rust said the actor began going off script and ad-libbing lines.
“The premise was, each person picks their character and goes, ‘My character is Skibby the Great, and he’s a warlock who has these powers.’ And then it comes to James Franco, and he goes, ‘My character is James Franco, and he’s been getting into cooking chorizo,’” recalled Rust.
“So, it’s sort of like he has to be self-effacing here, so that’s also part of the problem. And so, he starts doing ad-libs about other things that people say about James Franco. So he goes, but in the mumble voice, he’s still doing the mumbling thing, so he’s got his head down, he goes, ‘James Franco was high on heroin when he was hosting the Oscars last night.’”
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Rust said that at that point at a publicist intervened, asking Franco: “Why are you saying that? The camera is on you right now. You shouldn’t be saying that.”
Rust went on to clarify that he believed Franco was responding to online rumours about himself, when people made comments like: “What is this guy high the way he’s acting?”
He added: “I don’t know if they were saying he was high on heroin. And for the record, I don’t think he was high.”
When podcast co-host Matt Gourley asked how Danny McBride was behaving, Rust called him “a sweetheart.”
“Between takes, he’s saying to James Franco, ‘Hey, if you don’t want to do this, I don’t want you to feel forced that you have to do this,’” Rust said.
“But [Franco] keeps doing it. And then I see, it reaches a point where I see James Franco stand up, kick a chair and storm out of the stage.”
Rust said Franco “never came back” and he believes the promo skit never “saw the light of day.”
The Independent has approached Franco for comment.
