Interview: James Franco
High on Drama

A month after starring as a lovable pothead in the blockbuster Pineapple Express, James Franco delivers a small role in the mature love story Nights in Rodanthe. Here he explains why.

Just when you think you’ve got James Franco figured out, he goes and confounds your expectations.

For the few who caught the cult sitcom Freaks and Geeks, the first impression of the Palo Alto, California-born actor was as the underachieving metalhead Daniel Desario.

Quickly, though, the starring role in a James Dean TV movie and high-profile work as the tormented Harry Osborn in the three Spider-Man movies transformed Franco into Hollywood’s poster boy for youthful angst. His choice of smaller, artier projects added to the ultra-dramatic image.

Then last month, funny Franco came roaring back as perhaps the sweetest stupid pot pusher ever put on screen in co-star (and old F&G pal) Seth Rogen’s ultimate stoner comedy Pineapple Express, which was directed by indie icon David Gordon Green (All the Real Girls).

“The character is kind of silly,” the actor understates about the heavily improvised role, “but I certainly made a bigger ass of myself than what ended up on the screen! So it was good I could trust David to not put all the unfunny stuff in there.”

So what does Franco do next? Um, takes a supporting role in a schmaltzy romance, Nights in Rodanthe.

“I have a pretty small part in it,” admits Franco, 30, during a call from the UCLA campus where he’s finishing up a degree. Franco plays the estranged son of a doctor (Richard Gere) who falls in love with a confused married woman (Diane Lane) while they’re stormbound at an old inn on the North Carolina coast. Adapted from a novel by The Notebook’s Nicholas Sparks, it’s a long way from the cooler projects Franco has been involved with of late.

But he had a good reason for doing it.

“It was an opportunity to work with George C. Wolfe,” says Franco. “He’s the New York theatre director who won a Tony for Angels in America. He’s always up for Tonys, incredible director.”

Strangely, Franco hooked up with the highbrow director through one of his Pineapple Express co-stars. “Rosie Perez was in Pineapple and she’s really good friends with George, they’ve done some things together,” Franco says. “And she said, ‘Hey, my friend George really wants you to do this part in his first movie.’ So I just jumped at that opportunity.”

If Franco seems to be on the receiving end of good Hollywood mojo, rest assured these things haven’t always come easily.

“I had to really learn how to let go of a movie once I was done with my work,” says Franco. “It’s a difficult thing to put so much time into a role, so much research, shoot for months, then have it come out not like you expected. One thing that’s helped is doing smaller films or having a smaller part. I don’t have a large role in Rodanthe, like the case with The Dead Girl and American Crime and In the Valley of Elah. If those films don’t make any money, I’m fine, because I’m happy to be a part of them and I think that they’re special films.”

Franco also copes with the ups and downs of the movie biz by committing to what he originally moved to Los Angeles to do: become an author. He completed UCLA’s writing program in June and plans to continue studying the craft in New York.

“It’s something that I’ve always wanted to do,” Franco explains. “I was a literature major, and then acting kind of took off first. It became my focus for a while and I left school. But even when I was acting professionally full time, it was something that I would do on my own on the side. It can be a very isolating endeavour, though, so I wanted to be around other people that were doing it and I came back to the writing workshops.”

Maybe making a film based on a popular book isn’t so surprising after all.