Paul Rust recalls witnessing a post-Oscars James Franco meltdown in 2011

James Franco‘s career has since taken worse hits than the 2011 Oscars, but it is still a day that lives in infamy. His co-hosting gig with Anne Hathaway was so poorly received it has become legend unto itself, and comedian Paul Rust had a first row seat for the aftermath. On a new episode of his podcast With Gourley And Rust (via Variety), he recalls seeing the star “flip out” at a shoot two days after the ceremony, noting that Franco seemed upset because “the reviews were not good.” To put it lightly, “He was in a bad mood,” Rust says. 

The shoot was for a Dungeons and Dragons-themed sketch at College Humor as part of promotion for the stoner comedy Your Highness starring Franco and McBride. Rust remembers Franco mumbling through his lines with his head down, causing the director of the sketch to ask, “What was that? What are you doing?” Rust shares:

“The director comes over and gives him that, and that makes James Franco more upset. So, in the next take, he starts going off-script, and he goes—and it’s also, like, the script is about, it’s the joke that he’s probably tired of, which is James Franco, Renaissance man. So, the premise was, each person picks their character and goes, ‘My character is Skibby the Great, and he’s a warlock who has these powers.’ And then it comes to James Franco, and he goes, ‘My character is James Franco, and he’s been getting into cooking chorizo.’ So, it’s sort of like he has to be self-effacing here, so that’s also part of the problem. And so, he starts doing ad-libs about other things that people say about James Franco. So he goes—but in the mumble voice, he’s still doing the mumbling thing, so he’s got his head down—he goes, ‘James Franco was high on heroin when he was hosting the Oscars last night.’ And then the publicist comes in and, like, leans down and goes, ‘Why are you saying that? The camera is on you right now. You shouldn’t be saying that.'”

Rust says that McBride (“a sweetheart”) was telling his coworker between takes, “‘Hey, if you don’t want to do this, I don’t want you to feel forced that you have to do this.'” And yet the Freaks And Geeks star kept on until “it reaches a point where I see James Franco stand up, kick a chair and storm out of the stage,” Rust reveals. He adds that Franco “never came back” to set after that, and ultimately he doesn’t think the sketch ever “saw the light of day” because nothing they filmed was truly funny or usable. 

Rust concludes his anecdote by saying he now realizes that the reason Hollywood actors and insiders don’t publicize gossip isn’t because it would be bad for someone like Franco, but “it’s the idea that ‘Hey, this person tells tales out of school.’ That’s the third rail,” he observes. “Because, you know, I’ve been on different sets where people go a little nutty and you’re just like, ‘Okay, I’m not gonna talk about that in public.’ But I’m willing to stick my chin out for the canceled James Franco.”