Apparently, Dave Franco’s penis is less impressive than DeAndre Jordan’s. We learn this and other fun “facts” (Franco can’t rap…or jump!) in Franco’s latest slightly NSFW video for Funny or Die, “Real Life H-O-R-S-E!”
The title says it all: We watch Dave and DeAndre compete in series of absurdly escalating challenges. Basketball is only the beginning.
EW talked with Franco about his Funny or Die collaborations, stripping down with DeAndre, and his desire to one day direct.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How’d the idea come about?
DAVE FRANCO: So for all of our Funny or Die videos, I typically write them and it’s a pretty quick turnaround. Feasibly I could write it and we could be filming the next day and have it up online a week later. So it’s very rewarding to have that quick of a turnaround. And this particular project, I don’t now, I guess I’m drawn toward videos that have a game element to them. For example, our past videos—the “You’re So Hot” video and “Would You Rather?”video, they all have a game element. And I think why people are maybe drawn to those types of projects is because it maybe feels a little more engaging where the audience can keep track of the score and kind of know how far along they are in the video based on where they are in the game. I think in general it just feels a little more engaging.With the quick turnaround, what was the writing process like: did you sit down and hash it out in a day, lock yourself in a room somewhere, or was it more loose?
We’ve been doing these videos for Funny or Die for the last few years. Each time out I’ve been trying to top myself and we want to make each video better than the last. And because of that we don’t pump out videos every week, every other week. It takes a while for me to come up with an idea that I feel strongly enough about — but once I do come up with an idea that I do feel passionate about, the writing process is generally pretty quick. This one, I pumped out the first draft in an hour or two. But of course over the next week or so I polished it. This one was tough to get going mainly because we needed to find an NBA star that had a sense of humor and who was willing to make fun of themselves, and that’s tough because these professional athletes have an image to uphold. And DeAndre ended up being the perfect fit.
Tell me more about the penis competition.
Thank God that was the last scene that we filmed, so at that point DeAndre and me had a nice rapport and he felt comfortable and we were having a good time. And it probably appears that we let everything hang out in the scene and we are completely naked, but we were wearing very tiny flesh-colored briefs that were hiked down very low. That being said, there’s still 10 crew members watching you do this in your little flesh-colored briefs so that’s not comfortable in itself.Switching gears a bit, how’re you feeling after Warm Bodies’ successful first week at the box office?
I wanna say I can’t believe it, which I can’t because you can be a part of a great project and you just never know whether or not people will actually go see it. So it’s amazing. I feel so fortunate to be a part of it, regardless of how small my role is. At this point, I’m proud to be just a part of quality projects. Like I’m saying, despite my role not being very big, I would be an extra in a Paul Thomas Anderson movie. I just want to be around these filmmakers I’ve admired — like Jonathan Levine — and learn from them and see their process and see how they work with actors, because as you see with these Funny or Die videos I want to make my own films one day and just learn from these guys that I’ve looked up to for so long.
