EXCLUSIVE: The Real Story (and the Mastermind) Behind James Franco's Soap Opera Career Move

He's seemed constantly willing -- or even driven -- to deconstruct himself, whether it's in videos for Funny or Die that deconstruct his celebrity, or through your work. Do you think he wants an outlet for his fame?

You'd have to ask him that question, I wouldn't want to answer for him. I guess that speaking from my point of view, you certainly don't want to be pigeonholed. You want to be open to doing a whole lot of things. I think actors in particular use their bodies and their image and their physicality for their career, and they can be pigeonholed very quickly. Someone like James has a little more that he wants to do with his life, and that's what you're seeing with him poking fun at himself and doing things that a great actor and a Golden Globe winner like he is doesn't necessarily have to do.

I wonder, does this soap opera stint play into the idea of erasing James Franco, in that you're erasing the perception of what an actor of his stature would do?

I would say, yeah. I think what you said is true.

A whole lot of Erased James Franco is about those in-between moments...Franco drinking, Franco picking up a phone and putting it down. I couldn't help but notice that your Twitter seems to be interested in the same minutiae.

You really did your research!

Is that intended to be some sort of commentary or satire of Twitter itself?

You're the best for bringing that up. [Laughs] I thought, "This is something I'm doing and no one is looking at it." It's exactly what you said! It's hilarious. I mean, I'm almost forty, and I'm a little bit past the prime of Twitter. I thought, "I'd better get on Twitter because everybody else is and I don't want to miss out on a very important piece of technology. I need to know about it for communication!" So I got this Twitter account, and the last thing I have time for is to be Twittering. I thought it would be interesting to put exactly what you saw, which is great -- all these mundane moments, like, "I'm sitting on a chair." And it's so funny that people actually read that! "I'm sitting on a chair." I think that's just great. It's fun that it goes out into wherever Twitter is.

Do you think people use their Twitters to establish some celebrity? "Follow me!"

I don't know! It's a certain kind of celebrity, isn't it, like a quasi-celebrity? I really don't know what it is, but you can't deny that it's something. It's really interesting, though -- and it's really not interesting at all. It's truly Warholian to document the most mundane things that no one cares about, but somehow, people are watching.

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