“I’ve told him how much he’s meant to me,” the actor, who has faced sexual misconduct allegations from multiple women, said of his former frequent collaborator.
James Franco is making movies again — just not with his old collaborators.
Three years after settling a sexual misconduct lawsuit from former students of his acting school, Franco is starring in the upcoming Italian film Hey Joe. But in a new interview timed to the film’s premiere at the ongoing Rome Film Festival, Franco revealed that he’s no longer in touch with his old friend Seth Rogen.
“I haven’t talked to Seth,” Franco told Variety when asked about the status of their relationship. “I love Seth, we had 20 great years together, but I guess it’s over. And not for lack of trying. I’ve told him how much he’s meant to me.”
Representatives for Rogen did not immediately respond to Entertainment Weekly‘s request for comment.
Franco first collaborated with Rogen on the short-lived TV series Freaks and Geeks, in which they played high school best friends Daniel Desario and Ken Miller. They went on to work together on several films, including Pineapple Express (in which they costarred as a stoner and his marijuana dealer who find themselves on the run after accidentally witnessing a murder), This Is the End (in which they portrayed caricatured versions of themselves facing down an unexpected apocalypse), Sausage Party (the adult animated film in which Rogen voiced a talking sausage and Franco voiced a human drug addict who discovers the anthropomorphic food), and The Disaster Artist. The last of those films was directed by Franco as a dramatization of the making of cult classic The Room; Franco also starred as The Room director Tommy Wiseau, while Rogen portrayed script supervisor Sandy Schklair.
As of now, The Disaster Artist stands as their last collaboration. Franco won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for his performance as Wiseau, but when he wore a pin supporting the Time’s Up movement to the ceremony, it prompted five women to speak up and accuse him of sexual misconduct. One of those women, Sarah Tither-Kaplan, went on to launch the sexual misconduct lawsuit against Franco a year later, alongside fellow former acting student Toni Gaal.
After the lawsuit was settled in 2021, Rogen said in an interview with The London Times that “I despise abuse and harassment and I would never cover or conceal the actions of someone doing it, or knowingly put someone in a situation where they were around someone like that” and that “I do not plan to [work with Franco again] right now.” In an interview with Howard Stern a few months later, Franco confirmed Rogen’s comments: “What he said is true. You know, we aren’t working together right now and we don’t have any plans to work together…it was hurtful, in context, but I get it. He had to answer for me ’cause I was silent. He had to answer for me, and I don’t want that.”
In addition to Hey Joe, Franco also recently starred in the French thriller The Price of Money: A Largo Winch Adventure. Neither film currently has a U.S. distributor or release date.
