I felt, implicitly, or not so implicitly, that subjects about women and other races were out of my jurisdiction as a creator. That if I moved too far from my own experience, and my own established identity, I would be criticized for taking even more of those wedding pies from others.

I loved the world of Oz. I guess as a young man, I was just drawn to fantasy worlds. I liked being transported to alternative realms where a lot of my early imagination was sparked.

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

I view filmmaking as a director's medium.

Adapting a book is essentially a collaboration, whether the author is alive or dead.

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.

I think all great comedies - or at least the comedies I like - it has some of the funniest moments, but it never breaks the spell for the audience. It never pushes the audience away by spoofing itself too much or undermining the characters or making them cardboard or flimsy. Everybody is really trying to do what their characters believe in - and so nobody breaks the spell of the world, even though in other ways it's a comedy and very funny.