Bad guy, good intentions
Franco says his ‘Homefront’ villain at least has some decent goals
Lco OS ANGELES — In “Homefront” (opening Wednesday), James Franmakes a rare appearance as a villain. Jason Statham plays a widowed ex-DEA agent who moves to a small Southern town, both to escape his dangerous former professional life as an undercover drug agent and to give his young daughter a better life — or so he thinks. Things begin to unravel when Franco’s character, a local meth manufacturing kingpin, learns about Statham’s past and goes after him.
During a chat earlier this week, Franco talked about why he took the role in a film written by Sylvester Stallone, and how he has been able to carve out a life very different from that of his fellow A-List actors.
Q: You rarely are seen as a villain. Why did this Gator Bodine
character appeal to you?
A: He is the villain of the movie, but Sly didn’t write him as a cardboard villain. He’s actually a little likable and can exude charm, on occasion. Also, I wanted to give him human needs and show the reasons for doing all the stuff that he does. I think those are things we can understand. Basically he wants out of his situation. He wants to succeed. He wants a good life. And unfortunately for him and for Jason Statham’s character, he has to kind of take out Jason Statham in order to achieve his goals. It’s also unfortunate that he only thinks he can achieve success by doing something illegal and criminal.
It always intrigues me that basically smart guys — who could make money legitimately — decide to go to the dark side and look for the fast money track to riches. That often does not end well, but also offers up some great dramatic opportunities for storytelling.
Q: You also give Gator a kind of Machiavellian aspect. Was it fun to play him that way?
A: Sure. Remember, Jason’s Phil Broker character comes to my town. It’s my home turf. I’m the one pulling all the strings.
Q: You have famously carved out a very unusual Hollywood career, in that you don’t just make movies, but teach, write and do a lot of very personal independent projects. How do you juggle it all?
A: I’m a robot. No, seriously when I went back to school about seven years ago, nobody really thought it was a brilliant idea. I had this career which was going well and people thought that school was just going to get in the way ... and prevent me from accepting opportunities that could further enhance that career even more. People would ask me: Why did I want to gum that up with school?
But I realized if I wanted to do these other things, like go back to school, I was going to have to fight for it. I was going to have to carve out the time to do it. And I’ve done that, and now people understand. It’s just who I am now. And so people who work with me now appreciate it — and they help me so I can organize my life so I can teach and I can make movies and the rest of it.