Actor James Franco is very upset that McDonald’s is facing a major slump in sales.
It turns out that Franco has a personal reason for caring about the fate of the fast food chain.
“All I know is that when I needed McDonald’s, McDonald’s was there for me. When no one else was,” Franco wrote in a Washington Post op-ed.
I was given the late shift drive-thru position. I wore a purple visor and purple polo shirt and took orders over a headset. I refrained from reading on the job, but soon started putting on fake accents with the customers to practice for my scenes in acting class.
As bad as the accents were (Brooklynese, Italian, British, Irish, Russian, Southern), people actually found them persuasive. I was asked to give Italian lessons to a cute young woman who thought I was from Pisa; of course I couldn’t follow up as I did not speak Italian. The casting director for “NYPD Blue” liked my British accent, but was put off when I revealed that I was actually just a California boy. A couple of people wanted to fight my spunky Irish self. And I went on several dates as a thick-tongued kid from Bed-Stuy, even though my only brush with the actual place had been through watching “Do the Right Thing”…
After three months of working at McDonald’s, I booked a Super Bowl commercial for Pizza Hut. Because it was for the Super Bowl, it was very elaborate: a computer-generated Elvis singing and serving the new Deep Dish pizza. From that point on, I could support myself through acting.
I was treated fairly well at McDonald’s. If anything, they cut me slack. And, just like their food, the job was more available there than anywhere else. When I was hungry for work, they fed the need.”
Franco also wrote that he was concerned about how cost cutting at McDonald’s locations will impact minimum wage workers, particularly those in areas with newly increased minimum wages.
