Great Performances

A king and a terrorist. A tattooed hacker and a crazy mama. They may lose an arm or a spouse, become a billionaire or a vigilante, but the actors we celebrate here are sorcerers who, by pouring self into story, created indelible characters worth admiring or reviling — and always worth treasuring

Great Performances 2011

James Franco

By Richard Corliss and Mary PolsThursday, Feb. 10, 2011
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Peter Hapak for TIME

127 Hours

If Franco, 32, gave a singular performance as trapped hiker Aron Ralston in 127 Hours, it's partly because he had the best research material of his career: Ralston showed him the videos he made when he thought he was going to die. "He's not an actor giving a Shakespeare death soliloquy," Franco says of the footage. "He didn't want to lose himself, because that would make it harder for his mother to watch. I knew that if I captured that somehow, it would feel very authentic and powerful."










See James Franco talk about his favorite performances:

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