Coming to theaters this fall…the new film from Paul Thomas Anderson starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jeremy Renner, Reese Witherspoon and Emma Stone. Yep, had the cards been dealt differently for PTA, "The Master" would have been quite another picture. Now we can add another actor to the trivia list for the version of "The Master" that didn't get made.
During a panel discussion at the Austin Film Festival, James Franco shared a pretty nice anecdote about how PTA courted him for the part of Freddie Quell and how he ultimately "wasn't scared enough" to win the role. “Well, I don’t know if this is a funny story but it’s a true story,” he regaled, when asked it there was a part that ever intimidated him. “Paul Thomas Anderson was getting ready to make 'The Master' and he called me and we met. And we talked and we ended up meeting for coffee. We didn’t talk about 'The Master' but I met him to chat. And then he kept calling me and he wanted to talk and talk but I didn’t know what he wanted to talk about because we’d always just kind of bullshit on the phone. So then when he started talking about the role he said ‘Do you feel like you can do this?’ And I said ‘Yeah, totally. Look, I think you’re like the best American director. I feel confident. I know I can do this.’ And he said to me ‘But I want this to scare you. I want this role, going on this journey, to scare you.’ And I was like ‘Scare?! I know I can do it.”
“And so, incredible movie, needless to say I didn’t get the part. I guess I wasn’t scared enough or something, or whatever reason I didn’t get it," he continued. "And then when I saw Joaquin [Phoenix] in that movie I realized ‘Oh, he wanted me to like lose my mind.’ And so I guess that’s just to say I usually don’t get scared of roles."
And while we'll forever wonder what Franco's Freddie Quell might have been like, it seems he and Phoenix both have one thing in common — a distaste for the Academy. “You know, I’ll say one, I’ll say a role. The Oscars was challenging because the material they gave me was CRAP!”
Clearly, PTA made the right choices and was blessed with the cast he did get and film he delivered. But is there any alternate world version of "The Master" you'd like to see? [EW]