Seth Rogen recently told The New York Times that he hasn’t spoken to James Franco in a “long time” and has “no plans” to work with him in the future.
When asked about where his relationship stands with Franco after he faced allegations of sexual misconduct, Rogen answered, “I honestly think the nuance of it is too personal for me to get into right now. It is a very personal thing. There’s the public-facing side of it, which I’ve spoken about, and I have the same stance publicly that I’ve had, and I think the proof is in the pudding — I have not worked with him in years. But the personal side of it is just so nuanced, and it involves people that I don’t know if I should be dragging into this. I don’t know what I would benefit from getting deeply into it. Nothing has changed since the last time I talked about all this, and I haven’t worked with him in a really long time and I have no plans to.”
NTY’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro then asked Rogen if he still talks to Franco, and Rogen replied, “I haven’t talked to him in a long time, no.”
Rogen and Franco were once a potent one-two punch in Hollywood. Their collaboration history started on Paul Feig’s short-lived coming-of-age series “Freaks and Geeks,” which ran for one season on NBC in late 1999. Rogen was 16 at the time, and Franco was 21. They went on to appear together in several beloved comedy films from the 2000s and 2010s, such as “Knocked Up,” “Pineapple Express,” “This Is the End” and “The Interview.”
Franco’s career was derailed in 2018 after five women, four of them his acting students, accused him of sexually exploitative behavior. Two of the women in 2019 filed a class action lawsuit against Franco, claiming that he “engaged in widespread inappropriate and sexually charged behavior towards female students by sexualizing their power as a teacher and an employer by dangling the opportunity for roles in their projects.” Franco settled the case in 2021 for $2.23 million.
This isn’t the first time Rogen shut down the idea of reteaming with Franco. In a 2021 interview with The Sunday Times, Rogen said he regretted saying in 2018 that he could work with Franco again, and put the possibility of a reunion to bed.
“I also look back to that interview in 2018 where I comment that I would keep working with James, and the truth is that I have not and I do not plan to right now,” Rogen said.
Franco told Variety in 2024 of his relationship with Rogen, “No. I haven’t talked to Seth. I love Seth, we had 20 great years together, but I guess it’s over. And not for lack of trying. I’ve told him how much he’s meant to me.”
