James Franco On Hosting The Oscars: "I Was So Pissed"

James Franco is addressing his poorly reviewed Oscar host performance in the latest issue of Playboy, and he slams the awards show's writers and producers.

"I said to the producer, 'I don't know why you hired me, because you haven't given me anything,'" he tells the magazine. "'I just don't think this stuff's going to be good.'"
Franco notes that his least favorite part of his hosting gig with Anne Hathaway was when he came out dressed as Marilyn Monroe. He says:

"I was so pissed about that I was deliberately going to fall onstage and hopefully my dress would fall off or something -- they couldn't blame that on me; I was in high heels. ... I just didn't want to fight anymore, even when they said, 'You'll come out as Marilyn Monroe. It'll be funny.' Me in drag is not funny ... I just didn't want to argue anymore."

Franco said the awards show literally felt like a sinking ship. "I felt kind of trapped in that material," he said. "I felt, This is not my boat. I'm just a passenger, but I'm going down and there's no way out."
James even said he tried to get other writers involved in the show.

"There were a lot of cooks [writers] who shouldn't have been cooking but were allowed to. There were some cooks my manager tried to bring in, like Judd Apatow, who wrote some very funny stuff that wasn't used."