dixiedoodah 1,003 Report post Posted October 2, 2009 Considering he is high on everyone's BI guess list, I was suprised to not find a thread for him when I searched the forum. But anyway... The drama-filled town of Port Charles is going to be hosting a movie star soon. And not the kind of make-believe movie star who is secretly the long-lost brother of the woman who was abducted by aliens before awakening from a coma with amnesia – we're talking a real movie star. That's right: James Franco is joining the cast of General Hospital for two months. Franco, 31, will be playing a mysterious new character who will torment romantically challenged mobster Jason Morgan starting Nov. 20. According to SoapNet, it was Franco who approached the makers of the soap opera about joining the show. "We are thrilled to announce that James Franco will play an integral part in a lengthy run on General Hospital this fall," executive producer Jill Farren Phelps told SoapNet. "It's an honor that an actor of James' caliber would choose to spend some of his valuable time in Port Charles." Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
sanlee 49 Report post Posted November 14, 2009 James Franco loses identity, gains perspective Jesse Hamlin, Special to The Chronicle Taken from Franco's award-winning performance as James Dean in a 2001 TV biopic, it's an emblematic line in this fragmented Warholian art film, written and directed by the one-name New York artist Carter. A 63-minute meditation on dissolving identity and the artifice of acting, it features the dynamic young actor playing pieces of his celluloid self, re-enacting scenes from his film and TV performances - among them "Spider-Man," "Freaks and Geeks" and "City by the Sea" - in an intentionally halfhearted, often listless mode. "Performing with 50 percent of the emotion and physical energy creates a new character," says Franco, on the phone from New York, where he's studying fiction writing at Columbia and directing at New York University. Carter's disorienting collage of dialogue and gesture "almost takes on its own narrative. Like why is this guy in this weird space having strange conversations on the phone? On one level, he's a slightly mad, possibly drugged guy who's isolated in this space struggling to be an artist, struggling with whatever demons are inside. On another level, it's James Franco, completely aware that he's re-creating these scenes and he's not fooling anybody." That split-level tension intrigued the Bay Area-bred star, who will be in San Francisco on Sunday for a series of screenings and discussions presented by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in collaboration with the Castro Theatre. At 8 p.m., he'll join Carter at the Castro for a screening and discussion of "Erased James Franco." Shot in a 13-hour session at the Yvon Lambert gallery in Paris, the film is partially inspired by Robert Rauschenberg's fabled "Erased de Kooning Drawing," which resides at SFMOMA. In addition to asking Franco to redo scenes for his films, Carter also had him re-enact moments from two other movies, portraying characters who, as Carter puts it, "sort of disintegrate before your eyes": "Seconds," the disturbing 1966 John Frankenheimer film in which Rock Hudson is transformed, with the help of plastic surgery, from a bored middle-aged banker into a dashing Malibu painter; and Todd Haynes' 1995 "Safe," featuring Julianne Moore as a housewife with environmental disease whose sense of identity is dissolving. "Seconds" will be shown earlier in the evening at the Castro. "Safe" will screen at SFMOMA at a sold-out afternoon show featuring Franco's favorite episodes of "Freaks and Geeks," the short-lived cult TV series he starred in and will introduce. "Erased James Franco" is a glacially paced, artfully composed video that's both strangely compelling and nerve-racking. Franco answers endless phone calls, pushes a chair around and re-enacts other quotidian moments Carter plucked from his movies. He plays the pained Rock Hudson and Julianne Moore scenes at full throttle. But when it came to Franco's films, Carter wanted the actor to "dial down the intensity and see what that was like. I wanted him to not do the expected thing, and sort of work with his hands tied behind his back," says Carter, a rising art-world star who lived in San Francisco from 1995 to 2000, and whose work often deals with the fragmentation and creation of self. Franco, an art lover who owns one of Carter's paintings, calls this piece "an examination of performance. It was cathartic for me. In a way, it's kind of taking ownership of those performances in a fresh way. It's taking them out of context and saying, 'Hey, these are mine, if I want to mess them up, I can. If I want to put them in a new context and give them fresh meaning, I can.' " Despite the film's title, "I don't think it's really erased anymore," the actor says with a laugh. "It's smeared James Franco." James Franco and Carter will appear at 8 p.m. Sun. at the Castro Theatre, 429 Castro St., San Francisco, at a screening of "Erased James Franco." Includes admission to "Seconds" at 6 p.m. Tickets, $10 each screening, $7 for San Francisco Museum of Modern Art members. (415) 357-4000. www.sfmoma.org. E-mail Jesse Hamlin at datebookletters@sfchronicle.com. This article appeared on page E - 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...L#ixzz0Wo67FKNl Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
sanlee 49 Report post Posted December 18, 2009 Franco Explains General Hospital Role Actor JAMES FRANCO has explained the real reason behind his decision to take a role on U.S. daytime soap opera GENERAL HOSPITAL - it was all part of a "performance art" experiment. The Spider-Man star surprised his fans in October (09) by signing up as a mysterious new character on the long-running drama. But Franco has now admitted his two-month stint on the series isn't a serious acting move. He writes in the New York Times, "I have been obsessed with performance art for over a decade, so I decided to experiment with the form myself when I signed to appear on GeneralHospital as the bad-boy artist 'Franco, just Franco.' I disrupted the audience's suspension of belief, because I was going to be perceived as something that doesn't belong in the stylised world of soap operas. "Everyone watching would see an actor they recognise, a real person in a made-up world. It would be about inserting myself in a familiar space in such a way that it becomes stranger than fiction. In performance art, the outcome is uncertain. If it all goes to plan, it will definitely be weird, but is it art?" Source contactmusic Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MC 1 Report post Posted December 18, 2009 Franco Explains General Hospital Role Actor JAMES FRANCO has explained the real reason behind his decision to take a role on U.S. daytime soap opera GENERAL HOSPITAL - it was all part of a "performance art" experiment. The Spider-Man star surprised his fans in October (09) by signing up as a mysterious new character on the long-running drama. But Franco has now admitted his two-month stint on the series isn't a serious acting move. He writes in the New York Times, "I have been obsessed with performance art for over a decade, so I decided to experiment with the form myself when I signed to appear on GeneralHospital as the bad-boy artist 'Franco, just Franco.' I disrupted the audience's suspension of belief, because I was going to be perceived as something that doesn't belong in the stylised world of soap operas. "Everyone watching would see an actor they recognise, a real person in a made-up world. It would be about inserting myself in a familiar space in such a way that it becomes stranger than fiction. In performance art, the outcome is uncertain. If it all goes to plan, it will definitely be weird, but is it art?" Source contactmusic GH is one show I do tape (guilty pleasure). I must say that I have become a fan of James Franco because of the job he's doing on the show. When he finally meets Jason, he nailed the obsessed/giddy/psycho/killer. Hard to do, but he nailed it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
sanlee 49 Report post Posted January 26, 2010 Schizophrenic James Franco James Franco feels "schizophrenic" at the moment. The 'Milk' actor, who is currently attending university to do a masters in poetry as well as working on his acting career, claims that his life is currently a "balancing act". He said: "It is a balancing act - I spend less time on acting now than I did before, because I'm in school. "So, I try and put all of my major projects in the summer. So far it's worked. It can feel schizophrenic at times. Like Sunday I'll be flying back and then Monday morning I'll have class." The 31-year-old actor, who gained a Golden Globe nomination for his role in 'Pineapple Express' in 2008, also said that he is entirely focused on whatever project he is working on. He told Dark Horizons: "It's a very different world than this, but I've kind of gotten used to that." "It's like - I'm in school, studying the things that I love, and I want to study. So I kind of feel like wherever I am or need to be, whichever school I need to be at, or professional project - when I'm there, I'm completely focused on that." Source femalefirst Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BVjunkie 1 Report post Posted January 26, 2010 GH is one of my (many!) guilty pleasures too. He did do a great job as Franco, but I heard he was a douche to work with, and that he took all the props from his scenes plus a leather jacket of Jason's when taping was over. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
sanlee 49 Report post Posted March 30, 2010 James Franco Accepted To Yale James Franco has been accepted to Yale University's English PhD program. The Yale Daily News confirmed the report with Franco's manager, who said that the university is his "first choice" school. The 31-year-old, who has yet to enroll in the course, previously earned an undergraduate degree at UCLA, studied film at New York University and received his MFA at Columbia. The Spider-Man actor recently wrapped a recurring stint on ABC daytime soap General Hospital. Franco has signed to appear in director Danny Boyle's forthcoming 127 Hours. Source digitalspy.co.uk Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
