"Franny" premiered at this year's Tribeca Film Festival. George Whipple filed this report.
Franny is the character played by Richard Gere. He's a philanthropist who saw a couple that was close to him die. In order to atone for the mistakes of the past, he injects himself into the lives of Dakota Fanning and her husband.
Fanning portrays the daughter of the deceased couple. In this movie, anyway, Richard doesn't have the beautiful young girl on his arm.
Gere: "Well, unforturnately, she's like sort of my daughter and not my girlfriend in this so we have some things we have yet to do."
Whipple: "Richard, getting old is a—!"
Gere: "It's not so bad."
Whipple: "No, it hasn't been so bad."
Gere: "Not so bad."
Whipple: "What is, you know, being with the sexiest man alive and not having him as a love interest but clearly as a benefactor of your marriage?"
Fanning: "Yes, yes, yes. No, no, I love the story so much and getting to know Richard was one of the best parts of it and getting to know work with him. I’m such a fan of his so it was really wonderful.”
Theo James plays Fanning's on-screen husband. At first, he sees Richard Gere's character as a mentor.
"Richard's character and my character they—you know, at first he feels kind of, you know, almost in awe of this guy,because, you know, he's Richard Gere's character. He's Richard Gere. He's charismatic. He's wealthy. By the end, he realizes there's some manipulation and it's all coming from a place of a kind of damage and guilt from Richard's character," James says.
Whipple: "What is it like for a writer/director to bring their baby to the big screen?"
Director Andrew Renzi: "It's exciting and it's scary and it's all those things because you get really close to material, especially at the script level—you get very close at the script level—and then it becomes something totally different on screen."