James Franco
James Edward Franco is an American actor and filmmaker. He has starred in numerous films, including Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy, Milk, Eat Pray Love, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Spring Breakers, and Oz the Great and Powerful. He has collaborated with fellow actor Seth Rogen on multiple projects, including Pineapple Express, This Is the End, The Interview, Sausage Party, and The Disaster Artist, for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor. Franco's performance in 127 Hours earned a Best Actor nomination at the 83rd Academy Awards.
In his first prominent television role, Franco played Daniel Desario on the short-lived ensemble comedy-drama Freaks and Geeks, which developed a cult following. He portrayed the title character in the television biographical film James Dean, for which he won a Golden Globe Award, and received nominations for a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Primetime Emmy Award. Franco had a recurring role on the daytime soap opera General Hospital and starred in the limited series 11.22.63. He starred in the David Simon-created HBO drama The Deuce.
In 2014, a 17-year-old girl posted several screenshots of alleged messages between her and Franco on Instagram. The messages showed that Franco, then aged 35, tried to meet her in a hotel room even after she told him she was only 17. In 2018, the Los Angeles Times reported that five women had accused Franco of inappropriate or sexually exploitative behavior while Franco was serving as their acting teacher or mentor. A lawsuit filed by some of Franco's former acting students alleged sexual harassment and fraud; the suit was settled for $2.2 million in 2021.
Early life
James Edward Franco was born in Palo Alto, California, on April 19, 1978. His mother, Betsy Lou, is a children's book author and occasional actress, and his father, Douglas Eugene Franco, ran a Silicon Valley business.His father was of Portuguese and Swedish ancestry, while his mother was from a family of Russian Jews.
His paternal grandmother, Marjorie, is a published author of young adult books. His maternal grandfather, Daniel, changed his surname from "Verovitz" to "Verne" some time after 1940, and his maternal grandmother, Mitzie, owned the prominent Verne Art Gallery in Cleveland, Ohio, and was an active member in the National Council of Jewish Women.
Franco's family upbringing was "academic, liberal, and largely secular". He grew up in California with his two younger brothers, actors Tom and Dave. A "math whiz", Franco interned at Lockheed Martin. He was often encouraged by his father to get good grades and did well on the SAT. He graduated from Palo Alto High School in 1996, where he acted in plays. This led to him attending CSSSA in 1998 for theater studies. In his high school years, Franco was arrested for underage drinking, graffiti, and being a part of a group that stole designer fragrances from department stores and sold them to classmates. These arrests led to Franco briefly becoming a ward of the state. Facing the possibility of juvenile hall, he was given a second chance by the judge. He recalled of his troubles with the law, "It was teen angst. I was uncomfortable in my own skin. I was shy. I changed my ways just in time to get good grades."
Although the idea of becoming a marine zoologist interested him, Franco had always secretly wanted to become an actor but feared being rejected. He enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles as an English major, but dropped out after his first year to pursue a career as an actor, since he would have had to wait two years to audition for their acting program. He instead chose to take acting lessons with Robert Carnegie at the Playhouse West. Around this time, he took up a late-night job at McDonald's to support himself because his parents refused to do so. He was a vegetarian for the year prior to working there. While working at the establishment, he would practice accents on customers, an experience he remembered nostalgically in a 2015 Washington Post editorial titled "McDonald's was there for me when no one else was".
Acting career
1997–2001
After 15 months of training, Franco began auditioning in Los Angeles. His first paid role was a television commercial for Pizza Hut, featuring a dancing Elvis Presley. He found guest roles on television shows but his first break came in 1999, after he was cast in a leading role on the short-lived but well-reviewed NBC television series Freaks and Geeks, which ran for 18 episodes and was canceled due to low viewership. Later, the show became a cult hit among audiences. He has since described the series as "one of the most fun" work experiences that he has had. In another interview, Franco said: "When we were doing Freaks and Geeks, I didn't quite understand how movies and TV worked, and I would improvise even if the camera wasn't on me ... So I was improvising a little bit back then, but not in a productive way." After his film debut Never Been Kissed, he played a popular jock named Chris in Whatever It Takes, a modern-day remake of the 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac.He was subsequently cast as the title role in director Mark Rydell's 2001 TV biographical film James Dean. To immerse himself in the role, Franco went from being a non-smoker to smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, bleached his dark brown hair blond, and learned to ride a motorcycle as well as play guitar and the bongos. To have a greater understanding of Dean, Franco spent hours with two of Dean's associates. Other research included reading books on Dean and studying his movies. While filming James Dean, Franco, to get into character, cut off communication with his family and friends, as well as his then-girlfriend. "It was a very lonely existence," he notes. "If I wasn't on a set, I was watching James Dean. That was my whole thinking. James Dean. James Dean." Despite already being a fan of Dean, Franco feared he might be typecast if he'd captured the actor too convincingly. Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly wrote: "Franco could have walked through the role and done a passable Dean, but instead gets under the skin of this insecure, rootless young man." He received a Golden Globe Award and nominations for an Emmy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
2002–2007
Franco achieved worldwide fame and attention in the 2002 superhero film Spider-Man, when he played Harry Osborn, the son of the villainous Green Goblin and best friend of Spider-Man. Originally, Franco was considered for the lead role of Spider-Man/Peter Parker in the film. Todd McCarthy of Variety noted that there are "good moments" between Maguire and Franco in the film. Spider-Man was a commercial and critical success. The movie grossed $114 million during its opening weekend in North America and went on to earn $822 million worldwide.He next starred in Sonny, a 2002 release in which he was directed by Nicolas Cage, whose involvement had attracted Franco to the film. Set in 1980s New Orleans, Sonny follows the titular character returning home after just being discharged from the Army. To prepare for his role, he met with sex workers or people who had previously been prostitutes. The movie was panned by critics. Franco was cast as a homeless drug addict in the drama City by the Sea after co-star Robert De Niro saw a snippet of his work in James Dean. He lived on the streets for several days to better understand the subject matter as well as talking to former or still-using drug addicts. He also co-starred with Neve Campbell in Robert Altman's ballet movie The Company. The success of the first Spider-Man film led Franco to reprise the role in the 2004 sequel, Spider-Man 2. The movie was well received by critics, and it proved to be a big financial success, setting a new opening weekend box office record for North America. With a revenue of $783 million worldwide, it became the second highest-grossing film in 2004. The following year he made and starred in the black comedy The Ape and the 2005 war film The Great Raid, in which he portrayed Robert Prince, a captain in the United States Army's elite Sixth Ranger Battalion. In 2006, Franco co-starred with Tyrese Gibson in Annapolis and played legendary hero Tristan in Tristan & Isolde, a period piece dramatization of the Tristan and Iseult story also starring British actress Sophia Myles. For the former, he did eight months of boxing training and for the latter, he practiced horseback riding and sword fighting. He then completed training for his Private Pilot Licence in preparation for his role in Flyboys, which was released in September 2006; the same month, Franco appeared briefly in The Wicker Man, the remake of the seminal horror film. Also in 2006, he made a cameo appearance in the romantic comedy The Holiday.
He again played Harry Osborn in Spider-Man 3. In contrast to the previous two films' positive reviews, Spider-Man 3 was met with a mixed reception by critics. Nonetheless, with a total worldwide gross of $891 million, it stands as the most successful film in the series, and Franco's highest-grossing film to date. In this same year, Franco made a cameo appearance as himself in the Apatow-directed comedy Knocked Up, which starred Freaks and Geeks alumni Seth Rogen, Jason Segel and Martin Starr. Franco co-starred with Sienna Miller in the low-budget independent film Camille, a dark fantasy dramedy about a young newlywed couple and Interview, where he appears in a voice only role, both 2007 movies that were ignored by audiences and critics alike. Among his other 2007 projects were Good Time Max, which Franco wrote, directed and starred in. The movie premiered at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival and tells the story of two talented brothers who take very diverse paths in life, one going on to become a doctor whilst the other sibling experiences unemployment and uses drugs. The actor chose to cast himself in that role because, "It was really just a process of elimination. I was better suited for this role than the responsible surgeon".