James Franco on battling depression

In an interview with OUT magazine, James Franco opened up about his struggle with depression and how acting has helped him. “I have a very addictive personality. When I was a teenager, I got over certain addictions, and that’s when I started acting, at age 17,” he told the magazine, according to People.com.

He added, “I threw myself into it, and that became everything, to the point where I didn’t even socialise. And then after, like, 10 years of that, at 27, I realised, ‘Man, I’m so depressed. On the surface my life seems pretty good — I have a career and everything — but I feel isolated and lonely.’”

Direction is the actor’s new passion. Franco said that he found it awkward directing a sex scene with Maggie Gyllenhaal in The Deuce. “Maggie, in addition to being just an incredible actress, is fearless, and she really led the charge with how she handled the sex scenes and how she handled herself,” he added.