James Franco has a sex tape, Colin Firth rules on the throne

James Franco has a sex tape, or at least at one point had a sex tape, or has, you know, made a sex tape, he let slip recently during a panel discussion with other Oscar hopefuls ahead of Tuesday's nominations.

"I think if anybody who has made a home sex tape knows, what feels best doesn't always look best," he said. "I remember when I was 19 doing that, and then watching it back and thinking, oh, that looks horrible.

"So ... you have a lot of respect for those actors in pornography, because they are really not just doing it, they're really selling it."

Wait, what kind of panel discussion was this, anyway?! MTV's "Skins," anyone? Never fear, Franco, up for lead actor for his performance in "127 Hours," was just shooting the breeze for Newsweek, discussing with Annette Bening, Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman, Natalie Portman and Michelle Williams what it takes to pull off a good screen kiss, among other things.

"It's not just the kiss that feels best, it's an image," he said. "Something different is happening if it's a good kiss."

Fellow lead actor nominee Firth, however, addressed a bit of the underlying preposterousness of an acting career.

"[L]ife on a film set is inherently infantile," said the man lauded for his portrayal of England's King George VI. "Everything else is taken away to the point where we are helpless. ... [Y]ou are taken to a place where you do your job and you are told where to stand, where to look, and here are the words you are going to say, and they're not yours.

"And so there is very little that you have in your control, except what happens when you close the bathroom door."

Suddenly, we envision Oscar-host-to-be Franco making a homemade sex tape in his bathroom. And we imagine Firth sitting on a throne of his very own, invoking a dash of his yes-I-still-fit-in-my-leather-pants royal coolness from "What a Girl Wants."

And with that ... we're done.

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-- Christie D'Zurilla

Photos: James Franco in "127 Hours," left; Colin Firth in "The King's Speech." Credits: Chuck Zlotnick / Fox Searchlight, left; Laurie Sparham / The Weinstein Co., right.