BY MICHAEL GOODPASTER
(FOUR) STUDENT WITH BENEFITS
The dude is still a student. Not liking the way his career was going he enrolled into school. UCLA in 2006 and then NYU. He filmed a short documentary for class on the backstage process of Saturday Night Live. The short ended up being good enough to expand upon into a full length documentary. It’s been hitting the festival circuit and should be released soon. It’s been getting great reviews. Imagine being a kid in his class and being totally stoked about your small little doc and then you’re forced to sit through the dude from Hollywood show off his bad ass industry connections. I’m a huge James Franco fan and I can’t wait to see this documentary, but still. It makes us little guys in filmmaking look bad and poorer than we like to admit.
(THREE) DITCHES CLASS
In 2009 he was supposed to give the UCLA commencement speech but cancelled out on them due to scheduling conflicts. A month later he and the Harvard Lampoon put up a video on Funny or Die mocking the situation.
(TWO) NON-SMOKING STONER
We’ve all seen Pineapple Express a million times now. It’s a great comedy and his work in it makes for one of the best stoner characters in awhile. Franco is no longer a weed smoker and from the press on the movie I learned they used some fake stuff. To make it even crazier, High Times magazine named him “Stoner of the Year”. That’s great acting, there chief.
(ONE) SOAP STAR
In the winter of 2009, James Franco did the unthinkable. After being in highly acclaimed major motion pictures and gaining a huge amount of recognition and respect he took on a day job. His day job? Playing a crazy artist named “Franco” on the day time soap opera “General Hospital”. He considers his work on the show as “performance art”. I can see that. I’ve made an effort to watch him on the show a few times and it was good times. It was an interesting take on things and he did great with it.
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