Here at Movieline, we're proud Franco-philes. Whether we're watching James Franco's guest appearance on 30 Rock, dissecting every episode of his General Hospital stint, or unmasking the real reason behind his soap opera inspiration (as Franco's artistic collaborator Carter told us, it's all background for an upcoming film the two are planning), we're happy to follow Franco's every move simply because the moves make up such a notable zig-zag.
Now, the actor has come to Sundance with two more feathers in his multimedia cap. Festivalgoers caught him last night in Howl, where he stars as poet Allen Ginsberg for directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, and he'll soon be screening his NYU student film Herbert White, which he wrote and directed himself. Movieline caught up with Franco today to shed some light on his novel career.
I know you have a short film here at Sundance this year. Which were you more nervous to present, that or Howl?
I don't know if it's about being nervous. The directing thing is definitely a lot newer to me than the acting thing, and I've been to a lot of premieres for films that I've acted in, but I haven't been to many for films that I've directed. I guess I always get a little more nervous when I'm presenting material that I wrote or directed.
More nervous than when it's your face up there on the screen?
In a way, yeah. Although you're right...I directed two low-budget features before I went to film school and I also acted in them, so maybe I'm remembering the anxiety I had then. Now, I don't particularly like acting in stuff I direct, so I'm not acting in [Herbert White] -- it stars Michael Shannon. I don't know, I don't tell people I'm proud of the things I do. I work hard, but for whatever reason I just...I don't know, but I feel really proud of this short. Michael's basically my favorite actor, and it's based on a poem by this guy Frank Bidart who's one of my favorite poets. I think it turned into something really good! I don't know, I'm proud of it.
Do the other students in your film classes ever just go, "Fucking Franco -- he gets Michael Shannon in his short and we have to use the kid who lives next door to us in the dorm!"
I can never quite know what they think about me. [Pause] There's an analogy I want to make -- and it's really good! -- but I want to save it for something I'm gonna write, so maybe I won't quite make it. I'll say this, though: I'll never know what they really think of me, right? I'm in a couple of graduate MFA programs, I'm taking film at NYU and fiction at Columbia, and the film programs are designed to build interactive relationships. It's like team building, in a way, because you're all working on each other's shoots. In the fiction program, everybody's writing their own thing and then bringing it in to be critiqued!
So you get along better with the people you're collaborating with, I'm guessing.
I've found that I'm much closer with the people in the film program than in my other programs. I think I have genuine friends there. I do try and help give them some of the same resources I have. If my classmates come to me and ask, "Can you help me cast this," or, "I'm thinking about so-and-so big name actor," I can't guarantee it, but if I think their script is worthy...I helped get James Marsden and his wife in one of my classmate's shorts, and I act in them if they ask me.
Howl sort of morphed from a documentary into this narrative film during its development. Had Rob and Jeffrey already made the switch before you met them?
The present form was already in place before I met them. I still don't know how they came to the idea of [casting] me -- maybe you can tell me!
Well, Rob had directed The Times of Harvey Milk, and you asked him for some rare footage of Scott Smith, your character in Milk, right?
Right. Everybody who was on Milk of course watched The Times of Harvey Milk many, many times. Scott Smith was in that, but he's only in it for, like, five seconds. It's Scott and Harvey at, I think, the first gay pride parade in San Francisco, and it says, "Harvey had a relationship with his boyfriend Scott Smith and moved out to San Francisco," and they kiss. And that's it! It was like, I can't build a character on that. I mean, 99% of the public is not going to know what Scott Smith sounded like or moved like, but...
It was important to you to know that, instead of just going on what was in the script?
It was important to me, I guess because I was working so closely with other people like Cleve Jones and Danny Nicoletta who knew Scott. I felt a responsibility to them so I could get it right for them. Also, as an actor, it's inspiring to study a different kind of behavior, right? I always kind of do that whether it's based on a real person or a fictional character. I look for a source of inspiration. So I couldn't find anything, and then we had this big dinner with everyone who knew Harvey, and Rob was there. I had heard that he was meticulous when he made The Times of Harvey Milk -- not only did he do interviews for the documentary, but he also did pre-interviews and pre-cut the film! He would structure it that way and then he'd know what he really needed to go in and get.
Anyway, he had this interview with Scott Smith that hadn't made it into the movie that he had done as a pre-interview. I didn't know that, but I went to him and asked him if he had anything, and he said, "Yeah, I did an interview with Scott. It's probably in some vault." He keeps everything, I guess! The film was of Scott Smith in 1980 or something, two years after Harvey had been murdered. It was, like, perfect. So that was before we started filming Milk. I guess they've been working on this for eight years, and they were well beyond the documentary stage at that point.
You're playing a famous poet in Howl, and you've written poetry yourself, right?
Yeah, I'm also getting a masters in poetry through this residency program, one of the best poetry programs in the country. It's at this place called Warren Wilson College near Asheville, North Carolina.
When you write or study poetry, it's one thing to get at the meaning of it that way -- but when you have to recite Howl as many times as you must have had to during the making of this movie, do you discover something that's new?
Certainly, when you memorize a poem or read it as many times as I do -- Howl's so long that it's hard to memorize -- it gets in your head. One thing that's interesting is that you notice which words you don't get right, or what you want to change, and why that is. With Howl, he's using the long line, right? These sentences just go on and on, and one thing that does is that it gives the poem a certain kind of pace. It just comes and comes and comes, so it actually becomes a howl in a certain way. Because a lot of the imagery is so striking and the events are so raw, and it's delivered in this fairly fast-paced way where the way it's written makes you want to read it that way, it becomes sort of a howl.
You know, I interviewed your artistic collaborator Carter a couple of months ago...
Wait, for Movieline?
For Movieline, yeah.
Oh, yeah -- so you broke that! That was a pretty good article!
Well, when the General Hospital stint was announced, I immediately thought, "Carter's fingerprints are all over that."
They are, but then it also became a different thing.
One thing he told me to ask you is what prompts you to so often play around with your image. You've played yourself -- or at least a version of yourself -- in a whole lot of things, whether it's in Carter's short films or, recently, 30 Rock.
Let's see. [Pause] I think in some ways, using my persona in some of these projects -- even though it's not really me, they just use my name in some of these shows and it's supposed to be me, even if it's really not -- by doing that, it allows me to access different places in a certain way. You know what I mean? It creates a different dimension. Like, for General Hospital, because they call my character Franco -- and that was their idea, by the way -- it's not just another actor coming in and creating a character. It's referencing itself and it's drawing attention to that fact. I did 30 Rock, where I played "James Franco"...
You even played yourself in Knocked Up.
Yeah, exactly. [Laughs] I mean, a lot of that is...hmmm. I mean, Knocked Up, I don't know, that was just that they needed some actor to do that...
I'm just saying, you look at the IMDb credits for the parts you've played, and there's a whole lot of "Himself," "Himself," "Himself."
Yeah, I guess. Well, a lot of that is because they name the characters me.
But obviously it's playing around with the public perception of you. Do you enjoy doing that?
When you put it like that...hmmm. It's not like I'm trying to cultivate some image of myself. It's more like I'm allowed to do certain things and I'm given certain opportunities -- like being on General Hospital and having this whole crazy character sculpted for me -- because of that. I mean, I'm trained as an actor so I could play different characters, but for now, there's something about how playing myself mixes the imaginary world that I'm entering with my outside life. It brings them together in an interesting way. For these projects I'm doing that for, it's a very interesting intersection.
[Lead Photo: Jemal Countess/Getty Images]