Leaked Sony Emails Decry 'Irritating' James Franco

Plus, more on Angelina Jolie, Aaron Sorkin, Amy Pascal
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 16, 2014 10:22 AM CST
Leaked Sony Emails Decry 'Irritating' James Franco
James Franco, director of "The Sound and the Fury," poses at the premiere of the film at Ryerson Theatre during the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday, Sept. 6, 2014, in Toronto.   (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Celebrities continue to be embarrassed by the leaked emails coming out of the Sony hack, and the latest victim is James Franco. Franco stars in The Interview, the movie about a Kim Jong Un assassination plot that may or may not be the reason Sony was hacked in the first place, and Defamer has emails from a UK Sony Pictures exec, sent to another Sony exec, in which he notes, "James Franco proves once again that irritation is his strong suit which is a shame because the character could have been appealing and funny out of his hands." He also calls the movie itself "desperately unfunny" and says his preference would be for no cast member to tour in promotion of it, "however if this is not an option ... then we would like the lot—not just [Seth] Rogen and [director Evan] Goldberg but God help us Franco as well." More:

  • Is Angelina Jolie faking her chickenpox? That's what Sony sources told the New York Daily News. They claim Jolie is angry after emails were leaked in which producer Scott Rudin called her a "minimally talented spoiled brat," and thus decided to fake the illness to avoid promoting her new movie. Us notes that husband Brad Pitt and three of their kids turned out at last night's premiere in her stead.
  • Those aforementioned Rudin emails went to Sony Pictures exec Amy Pascal—and in other leaked emails, Pascal was revealed to have made racially insensitive jokes, including one in which she mentioned President Obama to Rudin and asked, "Should I ask him if he liked DJANGO?", Page Six reports. Now sources tell the Daily News that Pascal "will be getting fired to set an example."
  • The leaks have already shed light on Hollywood's gender gap, the Daily Beast reports, and in a newly leaked email from Aaron Sorkin to New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, Sorkin claims that great scripts centered around women simply "aren't there." He further contends that female roles are not as difficult as male roles—"Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep can play with the boys but there just aren't that many tour-de-force roles out there for women." As evidence, he points out a slew of women who have won Best Actress Oscars (Cate Blanchett, Jennifer Lawrence, Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, and Sandra Bullock) for roles that, in his opinion, were not especially challenging. Sorkin recently took the media to task for publishing the leaks.
(More James Franco stories.)

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