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James Franco on Oscars: ‘Maybe I Had Low Energy’

Following weeks of criticism for his lackluster job co-hosting the Academy Awards, James Franco has finally broken his silence, telling David Letterman: “Maybe I had low energy. I honestly played those lines as well as I could.”

In the interview (airing on Letterman’s late night CBS show Friday), Franco and Letterman compare notes on their hosting duties, according to New York magazine.

“I was so bad that they talked for a while about shutting down the motion picture industry,” Letterman tells Franco.

Franco shoots back: “[At least] they didn’t say you were stoned. People said I was under the influence. I’ve thought about it. I think I know why. I love her, but Anne Hathaway is so energetic, I think the Tasmanian Devil would look stoned standing next to Anne Hathaway.”

Franco isn’t interested in how he appeared on-screen.

“Truthfully, I haven’t watched it back,” he says. “Maybe I had low energy. I honestly played those lines as well as I could.”

Franco says he “never dreamed” of being an Oscar host.

“It was never on my list of things to do,” he says. “It doesn’t mean I didn’t care and it doesn’t mean I didn’t try hard, right? But here’s the hypocritical thing: Leading up to the Oscars, I couldn’t hear enough about how, ‘Oh, people don’t care about the Oscars anymore, it’s dead, it’s old, it’s at the end of a long awards season, who cares about it?’ Well, as soon as you don’t host the way you want to, they suddenly care and they won’t shut up about it! Suddenly, I can’t hear enough about a show they don’t care about!”

Source: Hollywood Reporter