James Franco has played a politician’s gay lover and a lazy pot dealer, a body-pillow-loving version of himself and Elizabeth Gilbert’s rebound man (in the anticipated memoir turned movie Eat, Pray, Love)—opposite, respectively, Sean Penn and Seth Rogen, Tina Fey and Julia Roberts. And let’s not forget his role as the soft-spoken rebel Daniel Desario in the late-’90s cult television series Freaks and Geeks.
But it was his Golden Globe–winning portrayal of James Dean that pushed him forward, as well as his role in Spider-Man as Peter Parker’s nemesis.
The entrepreneurial Franco has founded a production company and, perhaps to avoid typecasting, recently pursued and secured a recurring guest role on soap-opera giant General Hospital. Undeniably, the man has gumption. What else would propel a 31-year-old red-blooded American to host, sing and kvetch his way across Saturday Night Live’s stage, not once, but twice?
Plus, he’s the face of Gucci’s latest men’s fragrance: Gucci by Gucci Sport Pour Homme (from $71, at the Bay).
“My recent track record shows that I like, I enjoy, everything,” says Franco.
It’s 8 o’clock on a Saturday night, and we’re sitting across from each other in a hotel room at the Shore Club in Miami. Slouched down low on the couch with his head, at times, cradled in his hands, Franco is surprisingly articulate (he’s a graduate student at NYU and Columbia, but come on, I’d thought him too good-looking to be that intelligent), slightly grumpy, obviously passionate about his career, and seemingly exhausted.
“I like comedy, drama, I like both. It’s actually really difficult for me to say that I prefer one over the other,” he says, when asked which genre resonates best with him. “Actually, it’s nice to be able to mix it up. If you do too much of one, you maybe even get sick of it, so it’s good to be able to go back and forth.”
First published in FASHION Magazine May 2010
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Auntie Fashion writes:
It's his 32nd birthday today. I thought he was younger. I like him more now that I know he isn't so young.
—posted April 19, 2010 at 11:09 a.m.
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