TIFF PRESS CONFERENCE: James Franco holds court with Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens at the Spring Breakers presser

| September 7, 2012

Bless James Franco! Without him, filmmakers might actually have to talk about their own films. Oddball American director Harmony Korine attended today’s press conference for his latest flick, Spring Breakers, which stunt-casts Disney-friendly stars Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens, daytime soap star Ashley Benson and the director’s young wife, Rachel Korine, alongside Franco. And though Korine’s film may have been the topic of discussion, it was undeniably Franco who ran the show.

Slicker and much more mainstream than Korine’s last film—which amounted to 80 minutes of unknowns in wrinkled masks humping garbage and eating dish soap—Spring Breakers casts Franco as Alien, a corn-rowed Tampa thug who takes a coterie of young college girls under his creepy wing. On Korine’s behalf, Franco identified the theme of the film as superficiality, but also went on to offer his own Franco-ized version of the concept. “People think superficial is a negative term, but it’s actually a new phenomenon of how we live now,” claimed the (highly superficial) actor. As for the Disney Channel starlets stepping out of their comfort zone, Gomez said she was willing to take a risk on account of Korine’s track record. “I think he really believed in me,” she said. “It’s a hard transition to make, but hopefully people will accept it.” We’re pretty sure people will have no problem accepting a film in which Gomez and her tweenie-bopper cohort bounce around in bikini bottoms. So fear not, Selena Gomez!