James Franco, a sex tape and a grandma -- sorry, Conan

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James Franco is enjoying a considerable summer hit with ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes,’ but on Conan O’Brien’s show Tuesday the actor recounted a less successful filmmaking venture: the sex tape.

Franco and a former girlfriend did experiment in the amateur genre, he confessed to the flame-haired host.

‘When I was young, it’s not like I went down to Van Nuys and tried to break into the porn industry,’ he said. ‘I just got a video camera, and my girlfriend and I decided to film ourselves and watched it back and said, yeah, well, let’s never watch that again.’

So, O’Brien pushed, what exactly went, um, wrong with the tape? Franco explained that he wasn’t nailing the performance element he felt was required.

‘Those people in the pornos, they are great performers ... they’re selling it to an audience,’ he said. ‘Just like, you know, let’s say my grandma can....’

Can what? We’ll never know, as Conan promptly jumped out of his chair and hid. We imagine in the fetal position. See the clip, below.

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-- Matt Donnelly
twitter.com/MattDonnelly