KJ Apa for VMan Magazine by James Franco

[Kimmo 76,861]

His most boring photoshoot since he’s only wearing Lacoste as ambassador and bland interview…. It was all about James Franco 

Spoiler

 

KA: I was like 12, so I definitely wasn’t smoking weed. But I just remember watching Jim Carrey and even still now, nobody does it like him. When I see actors like you, like Jim Carrey, playing characters like that, I want an opportunity to do that so badly. I feel like after being on Riverdale, like a CW type of show, it’s really difficult to get those opportunities because people only see you as this actor who’s capable of doing one thing…I almost want to go to the opposite side of the spectrum of CW Land. I want to play real characters, you know?

JF: That makes me think of a couple of things. I didn’t realize how good Freaks and Geeks was when we were doing it because it was one of my very first jobs. Looking back it’s like, oh my god; Judd Apatow, Mike White was a writer, you know, incredible cast. But at the time, I was such an idiot. I was like, “Oh, I’m stuck on a TV show. Ugh.” Then it ended and I was like, “Oh, now what do I do?” But then I played James Dean and it started this new phase of my career. But then I did a series of movies that I just didn’t like and I got really depressed mainly because acting was the only thing I had in my life to define me. And then I reunited with Judd Apatow…he gave me a little cameo in Knocked Up to sort of prove that I could be funny. And then we got Pineapple Express and it changed my entire career. Which is all to say, there might be some people just around you right now who are thinking the same way you are thinking.

KA: Mhm, definitely.

JF: But I wanted to ask, when you look back on the show, what do you think some of your takeaways will be?

KA: It’s so hectic to think about because…I’ve spent a lot of time really unhappy. Really unhappy about where I was in my career, which objectively, seems really ungrateful. And then I realized, coming into my last season of the show, how incredible of an experience I’ve had. When I’m older, I get to have this documentation of these pivotal years of my life that are documented on television. The seasons represent chapters of my private life that I can look back on and show my kid and reminisce on. I’ve been through so much, man. As you know, a few years ago, I found recovery and my sobriety because at one of my lowest points, someone who I’ve worked with gave me your number, and it took me weeks to reach out. Because I was like, “Why would this guy want to help me?” Like, why would this guy want to help this CW actor from New Zealand who he doesn’t even know? I had your number for a while. I got to the point where I couldn’t really hack it on my own. And so I reached out to you, and you gave me another way to live my life through recovery, man. And that program and the program that I’m still trying to get has helped me tremendously. How to love myself, how to be a father, how to show up for myself, how to be a professional at work. And most importantly, how to re-establish my relationship with my God. Because I grew up in a pretty religious house in terms of being brought up Christian, and I still consider myself a Christian, but through this program, I’ve now understood that my direct link to God is through my self-expression, my creative self-expression.

JF: Well, what I’ll say is, I was definitely a workaholic, you know? I’m just speaking for myself, but you know, after a while it was kind of diminishing returns because I was working to the detriment of my life. And here’s my, you know, douche card. I got to have lunch with Bruce Springsteen one time, maybe five years ago. He said a couple of things to me that were so important because he was a bit of a workaholic as well…and at a certain point in his life, Springsteen realized, right after Born in the U.S.A.—number one album, still one of the best-selling albums ever, right—he realized he was so lonely, he was so alone. It’s in his book, that he went to this country fair in like, Kentucky or something, and he saw these families and these couples and he realized that he had none of that in his life. And that’s when he got into therapy. And so at lunch he said to me, “You can’t live in the work, but the work can live in you.” And I think it’s kind of like what Bryan Cranston said in his book: “I want to be sane in my life so I can be crazy in my work.” And the other thing that Springsteen said was, one of the scary things about success is that when you get successful, especially if you’re a creative person, the mind wants to think that everything about you contributed to the success. Even the defects. Like if you’re a rockstar, you’re like, “Yeah, all the crazy stuff I’m doing is going into my music.” But it’s like, no, you’re a great musician. Cobain was a great musician because he played every day in his basement as a teenager and practice, practice, practiced. Not because he was high all the time. He was great despite that.

One of the things I’ve tried to do with my work, because it used to be all, that’s my identity, I gotta do all this stuff , I gotta be great, it was like, take, take, take. And now what I’ve tried to do in my life is change the taking and just adding to what I can. How can I be of service? And I had been sober for a long time. I’ve been sober since I was 17 and I thought I was living a spiritual life because I was sober, but I wasn’t living a sober life in these other areas, work included. So now that I’m trying to get away from that work addiction, I’ve really tried to learn how to bring the spiritual side of things into my work and look at work as a form of service. And I found that when you do too much, it works for a while, you work really, really hard, but for me it was unsustainable. It stopped working after a while.

KA: I appreciate you doing this. I was actually really nervous before this because, for some reason, you just, you scare the **** out of me I don’t know dude. You just have powerful energy.

JF: Nah, I love you buddy.

 

Vman

[Cameltoe Chariot 12,289]

He's looking a lil crunchy here 

I miss my thicker, greasier King KJ 

[AURAOFSHEISSE 6,515]

He looks old tbh is it just the lighting and styling

[LaLuna 12,732]

Oh. The Archie hair is back.

[hieronymus 8,569]

40 minutes ago, LaLuna said:

Oh. The Archie hair is back.

wasn't howdy doody cancelled?

[Monstermilo 2,847]

he was hotter on the show, in RL life he is not as hot 

[Helxig 40,100]

I hate to say it, but his skin is looking a little rough for 25 

KJ, you live in New Zealand, you should know that we require 5 layers of sunblock here

[InsomniaMonster69 2,810]

9 minutes ago, Helxig said:

I hate to say it, but his skin is looking a little rough for 25 

KJ, you live in New Zealand, you should know that we require 5 layers of sunblock here

He is 25?,

No shade but he looks 34

[Helxig 40,100]

5 minutes ago, TasteofaFish said:

He is 25?,

No shade but he looks 34

This got me wondering if/how he takes care of his skin.. so I googled out of curiosity and there's a quote from him saying moisturiser is an essential and he moisturises his face 3x a day   I assume it must be that he doesn't wear sunscreen and spends a lot of time in the harsh NZ sun. The sun in NZ burns and damages skin like nowhere else and we have one of the highest rates of skin cancer in the world   I see farmer boys ageing really fast all the time just from sun exposure and squinting on bright days. I remember even at high school some of the farmies had lines. Wear your sunscreen people!

 That being said, he's better looking than me so I can't sit here behind my keyboard and judge