Quotes from James Franco

Create your world around your work. Create your work around your life. Let other people help you shape it.

You are successful if you are able to work on the kind of material that you want to - if your life conforms to your dreams, regardless of outside acceptance or acclaim.

If the work is good, what does it matter? I'm doing it because I love it. Why not do as many things I love as I can? As long as the work is good.

We all age. You shouldn't discount it as a subject for a film. Just because the characters are dealing with issues that you might not deal with for another 45 years doesn't mean you won't like it.

I don't need a vacation in the traditional sense, like I would if I had a job I hated.

I don't go on vacation. I don't really need vacation.

I've decided I can't really control people's perceptions of me. All I can do is decide on what I work on and how hard I work on it.

I only work with people I trust and respect.

I love to bring humour into my work. Because comedy is not a huge part of the art world. And big-business film takes itself very seriously.

It's basically the best job in the world. If you're fortunate enough - and I consider myself fortunate - you get to work with your friends and you get to work on projects that interest you.

I still work really hard, but I like to think I'm a little smarter about at least the type of movie I'm getting into.

Generally you don't initiate the projects - they're designed and you're inserted. Your material is edited by somebody. You feel a lack of power over your work.

A director on a film really sets the tone of how people go about things, so everybody is happy to be at work and everybody does their best.

You say I sucked at the Oscars. I was a genius at the Oscars. That was experimental tuxedo sleep art.

There's art on the show that's really bad - these cliché Abstract Expressionist gestural things. It's almost like extensions of my performance, because in the scene I'm really mad.

When I research a role it does get a little crazy and maybe even a little stupid.

One of the things I've learned as a filmmaker is to have some aspect of the movie be something that I admire greatly, whether that's an actor I'm working with, the subject matter, or a book.

My job is what I love. I don't need an escape from it.

I don't have many hobbies. If I think of hobbies, maybe ping pong. But I don't have a desire to get a ping pong medal.

Dreams and expectations also have the very dark flipside of disappointment, broken dreams.

You work really hard to make it, and maybe you get some acclaim, but then you realize there are certain limitations as an actor.