More than Just “Hardwork”: James Franco Bares the Truth about Workaholism and Depression
When people talk about addiction, it’s always the drugs, the booze, and the excessive partying, that comes to mind — all the loud, vulgar forms, but never the silent ones.
James Franco, however, has a different story to tell.
The award-winning actor, author, director, producer and poet, who deserves to be considered as an artist rather than just an actor, has recently opened up about the addiction troubles that he’s been facing for the most of his career.
In the cover story of GQ Magazine back in 2017, the artist openly shared about being lonely and how he lost his identity from being unable to separate himself from his professional persona, leading him to have a hard time building relationships with other people.
He said that he is an “extreme workaholic”, claiming that he was “addicted” to work and spent most of his time creating outputs from acting, producing, directing and many other things to have a lot of time away from his “feelings, people, and [him]self.”
The same could be said as he had showed up in 23 movies in a span of just three years, not even counting his works in the other fields besides acting.
A California Childhood
Growing up in Palo Alto, California, Franco was known to be a rather rebellious kid mostly getting himself into a lot of dangerous situations or having run-ins with the law. “In my first two years of high school, I got into a lot of trouble with the police for minor things: graffiti, stealing, crashing cars”, he said in an interview with The Guardian.
Despite being a tough kid outside of school, the artist was known to be a very smart student inside the campus. Not only did he pass his subjects in high school — he aced them, marking one high score after another. “It was teen angst. I was uncomfortable in my own skin. I was shy. I changed my ways just in time to get good grades.”
After he graduated high school in 1996, he attended the University of California, Los Angeles where he studied English and Drama, and was quick to decide that acting was best suited for him.
It was due to this decision that Franco decided to quit his hardcore party lifestyle entirely. He then shifted his focus mainly on studying and working to find a career in acting.
During this time, Franco used to work night shifts at a local McDonalds fast food chain for a living, soon landing his first major acting role back when he was just 19. It was at this time that Franco swapped his alcohol and drug problem for a work problem.
When Working Hard Becomes Working Bad
Now at the peak of his success, Franco had come a long way from being a 19-year old guy working shifts at a fast food chain to make ends to being a part of numerous blockbuster films bagging countless awards and recognition. He was so good at his craft that he even got a nomination for the most coveted Oscar Award for Best Actor for his role at the cinematic masterpiece The Disaster Artist.
But the ever workaholic Franco never got contented and always felt like there was room for doing something more.
While on the set of his acting projects, he was also holding art exhibitions of video work on the side, in addition to teaching aspiring young actors at various universities like UCLA and NYU. The artist also enrolled in a PhD course to study English at Yale University, wrote books of short stories, collection of poems and novels — all while directing and producing other film projects.
James Franco’s career is everything you would imagine a movie star’s lifestyle would be: the fame, the wealth, and the privilege to pick jobs that he wanted (and not NEED) to do. It is safe to say that with his hard work and dedication, the artist also played his cards right which came in handy in overcoming the tricky game of Hollywood.
But just when the artist thought everything was going perfectly according to plan, the work-life imbalance finally started to catch up on him. Franco, although continuously adding to his already-long list of accomplishments, felt like there were some parts of him that seemed to be missing. Still feeling the gap that needs to be filled, he decided not to open up the void with anyone and kept those feelings to himself which proved to be unwise.
“It was a gradual thing”, the actor said, looking back at the time when he suppressed such emotional struggle. “I hadn’t been in a relationship for a long time and was like, realizing how much I was running from feelings and people. And how much of my identity was wrapped up in work.”
He worked day in and day out and did nothing else until he reached the point of exhaustion and people around him LOVED him for doing it, not knowing the toll it had on his health and sanity.
“The thing about work addiction is our culture supports it,” he says. “We reward hard work and success. But it can really mask addictive, escapist behavior.”
Though there is no question about his love for what he was doing, the artist actually went to the point where he had no other identity other than his job. He never got involved into a relationship with other people and he never really had the time for himself.
It was due to this “persona” that the people expected to see this type of work ethic on him every single time. Because of the professional, out-and-beyond image he has established for more than two decades (and still counting), everyone would always, always expect Franco to outperform and outwork each and every single person around him.
“Every interview I gave, people would tell me, ‘You’re known for doing all these things, are you a workaholic?’ And what I would hear was, ‘That means you work really hard. You work harder than anybody.”
Though people were seeing his “work ethic” as an amazing thing, Franco, being as smart as he is, quickly knew that this was a problem that needs to be addressed.
He recognized the problem with being a workaholic because it means, as the term suggests, being “addicted to something”.
“And what’s underneath addiction? It’s about hiding from fear, from pain; it’s doing something to make yourself feel better. That’s exactly what I was doing and I had to really adjust my relationship to work,” he said in the same interview, showing his amazing self-awareness, “It’s really hard. I’m sure, like anything you’re addicted to, letting that go is difficult because it’s a coping mechanism to make you feel good.”
James Franco on the screens vs. James Franco on the streets
Now realizing that he had no time to enjoy because he was too occupied with his job, the artist finally decided to put a little bit of spice on his public persona.
How did he do it?
Let’s do a takeoff back to 2017 AKA the year Franco was surrounded with gay rumors.
It all started with the actor acting as a gay man on different occasions which then sparked rumors about him being indeed gay. He then added more fuel to the fire by saying in an interview that he was “gay up until the point of intercourse.” Then, he published a book of poetry entitled Straight James/Gay James to boot.
“There was also a part of me that embraced that public persona who was just wacky and hard to pin down,” he said. “So I had something to do with it. But that persona also rose around me – it wasn’t as if I could just do that all by myself.”
He said that the public persona that he was portraying is “not him” and he said that he wanted to “have fun with it.”
But the actor was quick to stop and realize that what he was doing is getting a little bit out of control, and is now taking on projects that he “really cares about.”
Looking back at those moments, he realized that he had been around, doing all sorts of things for a long time now, he was in the Hollywood industry for more than two decades now, and he said that “he’d be lucky if he had two more.”
Not caring about what other people think about him anymore, he is now taking his time to appreciate all the things that he had experienced and just enjoying life for what it is.
“What I’m really conscious of is that I realize what a great life I have, so I’m truly trying to be grateful. Forty is a big milestone, but I feel like I went through my own version of a midlife crisis – so I don’t think I’ll hit another one at 40.”
Up to this day, Franco has now slowed down with his job and is taking things one at a time. He has now learned a lot with everything that he did and himself at a place where he has time to reflect and for the first time in his life, he finally has time for himself.
