Anne Hathaway Says She and James Franco “Sucked” at Hosting Oscars

As for Franco, he talked about the gig during a 2016 interview with New York Magazine, noting that Hathaway had turned him down but that he had convinced her by saying, “‘Let’s just do it. It’ll be an adventure,’ and then we got a lot of s–t for it.” The actor, 44, added that he, “probably got more than she did, but she got a lot.”

Franco—who last year agreed with his fellow defendants to settle a 2019 lawsuit in which they were accused of sexual exploitation as well as fraudulently running Rabbit Bandini production companies and a Studio 4 acting and film school—also said he and Hathaway didn’t write the script for the Oscars. Instead, he said he “put myself in their hands” and that he “never aspired to be the Oscars host.” 

“I don’t care really,” Franco replied when asked if he regretted hosting the Oscars. “I’m going to do what they ask me to and do it as well as I can, but I don’t need this to be the best Oscars ever. I’m not getting anything out of that. In the best-case scenario, even if I killed it, it’s not going to help my career, because that’s not what it’s based on. It was an experiment.” 

(E! and Bravo are both part of the NBCUniversal family).