Quotes from James Franco

There's a tacit belief that actors shouldn't write books, they're sort of allowed to direct movies but there will be a lot of skepticism, and they shouldn't do artwork or music. There are these invisible roadblocks to gain entree to these areas for actors, and you kind of have to crash through those invisible barriers.

Sometimes I get a little sad, and I feel like being alone. Then I talk to my cat about it, and he reminds me I'm James Franco. Then we dance.

I am not going to be the guy who's not pulling his weight.

In the end, I do have a group of friends and teachers whose opinions I respect, and so I guess I just have to be content with their feedback.

I'm starting to teach now: I teach in the graduate film program at NYU and next year I'm going to be teaching at Los Angeles at the film program and English program at UCLA.

I am very grateful for my life. I think one of the keys to not being depressed is to find gratitude and to be grateful for what you have. So I am grateful for what I have.

If this is the only life, then why I'm not just doing everything I want to do.

Not having any real direction, one writer would lead me to another.

I was kind of scared of failing at acting.

I acted professionally for about eight years, and I was writing all that time but never showed anybody any of it. There just came a point after those eight years when I thought, 'There's a lot I can do with acting - there are a lot of things I can express and do creatively, but there are also limitations.'

I feel like because I've done more gay characters, gay scenes, or gay projects than most straight actors, people see it as some sort of mission. It's more of a case-by-case basis, and just trying to capture figures that I love. I guess that a lot of the figures that I love were gay.

I used to read a lot about myself and the projects I was doing. When I was only acting, I wouldn't read any reviews because I didn't find them to be very helpful.

I view filmmaking as a director's medium.

Directing, editing, and everything about filmmaking has definitely changed me as an actor.

"The Wolfpack" is a real life clash of life and fiction and the saving power of brotherhood and make-believe.

I might have to stumble a little bit more in public than others, but that's fine, I don't mind, I've developed a thick skin.

The new critique you're gonna start hearing about James Franco, is 'He's spreading himself too thin.'

This was the way the night had cashed in. Choices had been made and things happened, and here we were. It was sad, and funny. My life was made of this. Stuff like this.

When we were doing 'Freaks and Geeks', I didn't quite understand how movies and TV worked, and I would improvise even if the camera wasn't on me. I thought I was helping the other actors by keeping them on their toes, but nobody appreciated it when I would trip them up. So I was improvising a little bit back then, but not in a productive way.

I was an English major at UCLA when I was 18, and then I left after a year to start acting. I was educating myself during that time.

I used to care about how I looked. Now I don't care as much. Maybe it's because I'm so handsome.

If many people love me, then I must be important.

School allowed me to have outlets so that some of the pressure was taken off the acting. Every role in every movie, I used to live or die by. Once I had these new outlets, I relaxed a lot more.

Because acting was my only professional outlet, I put a ton of pressure on the roles that I did. I overstepped my bounds, I tried to control things that were out of my purview as an actor and in some cases even tried to direct my scenes because I felt I knew how they should run rather than trust the director.