NEW YORK – Buckle up for the road trip from hell.
In Dave Franco’s new movie “Idiots” (in theaters Aug. 28), the actor plays a doltish stoner named Mark, who along with the equally inept Davis (O’Shea Jackson Jr.), gets hired to drive a wealthy, trouble-making teen (Mason Thames
) to rehab. But their trek quickly veers off into all-out chaos, as drugs, strippers and gun-toting amateur rappers enter the fray.Directed by Macon Blair, the raunchy R-rated comedy is loosely based on an idea from “Idiots” producer Alex Orr, whose friend worked at a similarly slipshod transportation service.
“The reason he thought it would be a good movie is because the only requirement to get this job is to have a working driver's license, so you can be a full degenerate
and have these kids under your supervision,” Franco, 41, recalls during a recent visit to USA TODAY’s office.
Mark and Davis “are the last people you want your kid with. But then the twist is that the kid we’re transporting is way worse than us – he’s a full psychopath.”
'Idiots' star Dave Franco looks back on the role that got away
Mixing explosive gross-out humor with sly social commentary, “Idiots” is precisely the sort of audacious big swing that has become Franco’s bread and butter.
When he’s not starring in hit franchises “Neighbors” and “Now You See Me,” the Emmy nominee has made a conscious effort to act in and produce more offbeat fare, whether he’s playing a fugitive who sleeps his way through a convent (“The Little Hours”) or a man whose body fuses with his partner’s (“Together,” co-starring Franco’s wife of nine years, Alison Brie).
“A lot of things that I do are kind of risky and that’s why I’m drawn to them,” Franco says. “I want to see movies that are trying to do something different. They don’t always work, but I appreciate people being like, ‘Hey, let’s not do another remake. Let’s surprise audiences.’ ”
Franco and his older brothers, artist Tom Franco and actor James Franco, grew up in Palo Alto, California. His first-ever job was at 14 in a mom-and-pop video store, where because of his age, he was paid under the table in unlimited rentals. He fell in love with film through watching “Being John Malkovich” and “Fight Club,” and eventually, he started acting as a way to break out of his shyness.
He remembers one early audition that seemed disastrous at the time, when renowned casting director Allison Jones asked him to “slate” his name for the camera. He misheard her and thought she said “sleep.”
" 'Slate' means just to look into the camera and say your name. Simple as that," Franco recalls. "But I was a young actor. I didn't understand the terminology at the time. ... So I got comfortable, leaned my head back and started 'sleeping.' She was like, ‘No, no, no!’
"We had a good laugh about it," Franco adds. "I clearly made an impression with her because not long after that, she cast me in ‘Superbad,' " his 2007 film debut. "The moral of the story is just sleep in an audition! They’ll remember you.”
Of course, not every audition went his way: He remembers feeling particularly bummed when he didn’t land “Little Miss Sunshine,” but “then I saw the film and was like, ‘Yeah, this was meant for Paul Dano. I couldn’t have pulled off this role.’ ” And after the 2012 buddy cop comedy “21 Jump Street," he recalls feeling typecast as dirtbag bro characters.
Franco credits frequent collaborator Seth Rogen, as well as filmmakers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, for helping to push him as a performer. He also says that 2017’s “The Disaster Artist” – detailing the behind-the-scenes mayhem behind cult classic “The Room” – was a major turning point in how he’s perceived in Hollywood.
“I played the real-life Greg Sestero, who is a very sweet, non-douchey guy,” Franco says. “That was the first time I got to show more of who I really am in real life, as opposed to all these more villainous roles. It’s exciting to play these parts that are so outside of yourself, but after a certain point, I think people were just like, ‘Oh, that’s who he is! This guy’s a terrible person!’ I don’t have social media, so all people know of me is what they see onscreen.”
Why James Franco worried his 'Hoppers' character was 'too unhinged'
That said, Franco’s villain days aren’t entirely behind him. In Disney/Pixar’s body-swap comedy “Hoppers,” released earlier this year, the actor voices a maniacal butterfly named Titus who plots to wipe out humanity so insects can inherit the Earth. It’s deeply strange and very dark for an animated, PG-rated movie: At one point, Titus inhabits the robotic body of a small-town mayor, luring people to a political rally with the intent to kill them. He even had a disturbing sequence inspired by "The Exorcist" that wound up getting cut because it went "a little too far" for kids.
“While we were recording, we all kept checking in with each other like, ‘Is what I’m doing too unhinged?’ ” Franco recalls. “One of my closest friends has a 3-year-old daughter. They went to see ‘Hoppers’ and my friend goes, ‘In my daughter's three years of life, you in that movie are literally the scariest thing that's ever happened to her. She is having nightmares.’ And I said, ‘That is the best review I have ever received.’ ”
Next up, Franco will voice another animated character in the fantasy adventure “Forgotten Island” (in theaters Sept. 25), and he has a few projects in development as both a writer and director. He was recently wowed by Olivia Wilde’s “The Invite” and its exploration of messy relationships – a subject he wants to continue mining after his previous directorial outings, “The Rental” and “Somebody I Used to Know,” both of which starred Brie.
“It’s interesting that I am drawn to these stories because my relationship with my wife is very stable,” Franco says, smiling. “In my everyday life, I feel pretty even-keeled! But then when I’m at work, I just want to throw everything against the wall.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dave Franco had the worst audition ever. It launched his whole career.
