From a recent GQ profile of newly-minted superstar (currently on view in PINEAPPLE EXPRESS) James Franco--also a recent grad of UCLA:
franco alternates between talking about his present academic and creative life with gusto and pulling in the reins, fearful of how such talk may come across. When I ask him what he is proud of that he has done so far, he seems incredulous that I might mean any of his movies and instead offers, “I got a poetry honorable mention at UCLA,” but when I try to ask him more about the poetry, he seems to shiver a little and is unwilling to elaborate. He knows how these things can seem. “It just sounds like, ‘Oh, the actor’s doing poetry,’ ” he demurs. “In that sense, it seems ridiculous to me. But I’m taking it as seriously as I can. I’m not calling up some café and saying, ‘Hey! I’m James Franco, I’m going to read the poetry I wrote about my motorcycle.’ I mean, I’m working with real poets. I’m doing it in as serious a way as I can.”
The full article (where Franco, among other topics, discusses his Ben Affleck period of taking Movie Star roles in films such as FLYBOYS--not as bad a film as Franco makes it sound) can be found at: http://men.style.com/gq/features/full?id=content_7397
And here's this factoid from Cinemablend.com:
James Franco has already won accolades for playing an icon of an earlier decade, when he starred as James Dean in a TV biopic about the troubled actor. But now he's tackling an even tougher real-life character, and one who doesn't exactly immediately make you think of Franco. The star of the upcoming Pineapple Express told MTV Movies that he'll play Beat poet Allen Ginsberg in Howl, a documentary that nonetheless will feature Franco in re-enactments as a young Ginsberg.
"I’m gonna play the young Allen Ginsberg, the days before he went bald and gained weight. The early Howl days," Franco told them. Now, the picture you see above is how we normally think of Ginsberg-- covered in facial hair, and a bit on the portly side. But check out the image here, of Ginsberg at a younger age when he actually wrote Howl, the landmark poem that made him famous. You can kind of see the resemblance, right?
Howl is known for being a tough, raw poem, but Franco claims he's read it many times, so at least he knows what he's up against. He's always been an actor to willingly take challenges, so it's exciting to see him sticking with a dramatic role like this one even with Pineapple Express about to reveal him as a bona fide comedian. OK, so the Ginsberg role will be a re-enactment within a documentary--- not exactly big enough for an Oscar nod. But you know with Franco in the part, you'll pay attention anyway.
And finally, here's a link to an essay called "Intense Emotional Experience" Franco wrote that was accepted by UCLA's WESTWIND writers' magazine for the Winter 2008 issue: http://www2.humnet.ucla.edu/westwind/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=26&Itemid=31
