James Franco Has Some Relationship Advice For All

James Franco opened up about his appearance in upcoming rom-com, Why Him? to Entertainment Weekly, and his interview implied that working on the movie had potentially been a learning experience. Because I'm telling you, dear readers, havers of boyfriends or boyfriends themselves, Franco's romantic advice for his Why Him? character needs to get its spin-off book, like that one Sex And The City episode which turned into the bestselling dating book, He's Just Not That Into You. Because it is gold.

A little background: the movie focuses on one overprotective dad (played by Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston), his daughter, and one filter-free would-be fiancee, an eccentric internet zillionaire, Laird Mayhew, who does stuff like getting his girlfriend's family's Christmas card tattooed onto his back to impress them. This guy is played by Franco. The tragicomedy of the film is that, while Mayhew decides that the best way to solve his potential father-in-law's distaste is to double down his efforts to impress Cranston's grumpy character, as the trailer suggests, the more Mayhew does to go out of his way to win him over, the more suspicious and hostile the dad becomes.

Franco said of the film's title that it

...suggests that I’m supposed to be repellant to Bryan’s character, but the trick of it is is my guy actually isn’t that. [He’s] actually a pretty good guy at heart, and he’s actually really great for [Ned’s] daughter, but we needed to set it up in such a way that even my good intentions are misread by Bryan’s character. I guess for my character’s arc, he’s really trying to please everybody. It’s just that he goes about it the wrong way, and so finally at the end, he kind of wakes up and realizes maybe he doesn’t have to try so hard.

This is all pretty heartwarming because, yes. Franco's advice isn't just applicable to his character, but to all of us. In fact, I totally retract my gender-specific introduction, because this is just great dating advice for anyone, regardless of what gender you identify as and who you're dating. Much like applying perfect cat's-eye liner, best results are attained in the dating world via just not trying so hard (seriously, my only beauty tip: put on your favorite track of the moment and focus on that and not your eye for your perfect liner results).

His advice on swerving people pleasing also seems strong, because, you know, if you tried to please everyone with your eyeliner, you'd have one eye with the liner slanting upwards and one with it staying parallel and Cleopatra. Basically, you'd look like an insane person. And, yes, this labored eyeliner parallel is also a metaphor for what you're going to appear like to your partner if you get a tattoo of their Christmas card on your back to impress their dad — or, OK, whatever the non-Hollywood movie equivalent of this is. Pretending to support their dad's sports team and saying stuff like "Go cubs!" when you've never watched a single baseball game in your life, I guess.

In conclusion, we have discovered one key piece of info: James Franco is not just a talented artist/auteur/actor, but a source of amazing relationship advice.