Actors Anonymous by James Franco Read Free Book Online Page B

purity, not for reasons of money or popularity.
    But there is also something to be said for being successful for the sake of being successful, or getting rich for the sake of getting rich, or being famous. Maybe in the end, this is all there is.
    But I would prefer a nation of artists than a nation of businessmen.
    This is how they get the kids to go to Wall Street: The banks recruit at the top Ivy League schools. They make it seem like Wall Street is the next step in the elitist rise up the ladder. The young Ivy Leaguers want to continue their dominance, so they join the ranks of rats.
    Business. It’s all business. Culture is business. Art is business. They call it the
movie
business for a reason.
    Here’s the new game, or the same old game (French New Wave): Get one over on them while still playing their games. Make movies that fit into their system but also subvert their system.
    That’s the best way to go. Just don’t let yourself become Disneyfied or Hollywoodified or indiefied or dramafied or comedyified.
    Sometimes you can get into a situation where you can be the actor in some pieces, the director in others, and the writer in others. Sometimes you can be all at once, but that is usually not the most fun. Unless you’re Charlie Chaplin.
    Or Woody Allen.
    Must be nice to control your whole world the way Woody does. His whole world is his movies, his music, and everything he loves. He’s brought everything he loves around him.
    Create your world around your work. Create your work around your life. Let other people help you shape it.
    The film lovers and the crazies: Sometimes they’re the same people.
    Some people love the characters, and some people love the actors behind the characters.
    Sometimes the characters take on attributes of the actors; sometimes the actors take away attributes of their characters into their own lives.
    John Wayne became a cowboy because he played so many. He grew up in Glendale.
    The Marlboro Man probably thought of himself as a cowboy.
    If a real cowboy posed for a Marlboro ad, he’d be a phony, no?
    You need to be able to take on all roles and laugh at all roles. To be able to mock the role you’re playing
while
you’re playing it.
    You also need love. Your characters need to love something, otherwise they will be unlovable.
    That’s one of the big secrets. Make your characters interested in
something
. Striving for something. In need of something. Good at something. This will make them likeable and interesting.
    You want to be interesting? Be interested.
    You want people to open up to you? Open up to them.
    I was a brat when I was little. Closed off. At camp, with strangers, I didn’t want to share my secrets.
    But I had no secrets worth keeping. Be open, open, open.
    Your experiences are your most powerful resource. Share them.
    When I was twenty-seven, I had to teach myself how to talk to people, how to be social. How not to be shy.
    Being famous also helps. People will just talk to me. I am never alone at a party. People will chat my ear off.
    Or I’m like Santa Claus: Everyone needs a picture sitting on my knee.
    The ones I don’t mind are the young pretty ones.
    Eat everything up.
    Don’t worry about rejection. Keep trying.
    If you are a player, it’s fine; you’ll just have more experience when “the one” comes around.
    The people who hold back and wait for “the one” are usually too obsessed once they find the one that they pressure the relationship to death.
    Be free.
    Your life is not in your control anyway. You are made up of everything around you. So choose your characters and play them out.
    Don’t worry about the consequences so much—they’re just roles, right?
    Life is but a stage. Life is but a film. Life is death if it is not recorded.
    Create.

STEP 4
Made a fearless and searching moral inventory of our “character.”

    River Poems
    1. River in Idaho
    River gets a blowjob from a fatman
    In the first scene. He gets money.
    He meets with Keanu,