James Franco
Franco at the Spider-Man 3 premiere, April 2007
Born	James Edward Franco April 19, 1978 (1978-04-19) (age 31) Palo Alto, California, United States
Occupation	Actor, director, screenwriter, film producer, artist
Years active	1999–present

James Edward Franco (born April 19, 1978) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, film producer, and artist. He began acting during the late 1990s, appearing on the short-lived television series Freaks and Geeks and starring in several teen films. In 2001 he played the title role in Mark Rydell's television biographical film James Dean, which earned him a Golden Globe for Best Actor.

He became well known in the early 2000s when he was cast as Harry Osborn in the Spider-Man films. In 2005, he starred in the war film The Great Raid, in which he played Robert Prince, captain of a Ranger Battalion who rescued prisoners of war from the Cabanatuan prison camp during World War II. The following year, he had starring roles in three movies, Tristan & Isolde, Annapolis, and Flyboys. In 2008, he starred in the comedy/stoner film Pineapple Express opposite his Freaks and Geeks co-star Seth Rogen. He has appeared in Nights in Rodanthe and played a prominent role in the biographical film Milk.

Early life

Franco was born April 19, 1978 in Palo Alto, California, the son of Betsy (née Verne), a poet, author and editor, and Doug Franco.¹ His maternal grandmother, Mitzi Levine Verne, runs the Verne Art Gallery, a prominent art gallery in Cleveland, Ohio.² Franco's father is of Portuguese and Swedish descent³ and Franco's mother is Jewish,⁴⁵ a descendant of immigrants from Russia.¹ Franco grew up in California with his two younger brothers, Tom and Dave,¹⁶ and graduated from Palo Alto High School in 1996, where he was elected by his senior class as the student with the "best smile".¹ He then enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as an English major.⁷ He dropped out after his freshman year and chose to pursue a professional career as an actor, taking acting lessons with Robert Carnegie at Playhouse West.¹

Career

Early work

After fifteen months of training, he began auditioning in Los Angeles, California, and got his first break in 1999, after he was cast in a leading role on the short-lived but well-reviewed television series Freaks and Geeks.⁸ Franco has since described the series as "one of the most fun" work experiences that he has had.⁹ 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."¹⁰

His first major film was the romantic comedy Whatever It Takes (2000), where he co-starred with his then-girlfriend, Marla Sokoloff.¹¹¹² He was subsequently cast as the title role in director Mark Rydell's 2001 TV biopic James Dean..¹³¹⁴ 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."¹⁵ He was distinguished with a Golden Globe Award,¹⁶ as well as being nominated for an Emmy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.¹⁷¹⁸

Spider-Man and after

Denis O'Hare and Franco discuss their roles in the 2008 Gus Van Sant film Milk, and its subject, Harvey Milk.

In the 2002 superhero film Spider-Man, the most successful film of his career to date, Franco played Harry Osborn, the son of the villainous Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) and best friend of the title character (Tobey Maguire).¹⁹ Originally, Franco was considered for the lead role of Spider-Man/Peter Parker in the film.²⁰ Though the lead went to Tobey Maguire. Todd McCarthy of Variety noted that there are "good moments" between Maguire and Franco in the film.²¹ Spider-Man was a commercial and critical success.²² The movie grossed $114 million during its opening weekend in North America and went on to earn $822 million worldwide.²³ In this same year, Franco was cast in the drama City by the Sea (2002).¹²⁴ The following year he co-starred alongside Neve Campbell in Robert Altman's The Company (2003).²⁵

The success of the first Spider-Man film led Franco to reprise the role in the 2004 sequel, Spider-Man 2.²⁶ The movie was well received by critics,²⁷ and it proved to be a big financial success, setting a new opening weekend box office record for North America.²⁸ With revenue of $783 million worldwide, it became the second highest grossing film in 2004.²³ The following year he appeared in 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, to plan the rescue of prisoners of war from the Cabanatuan prison camp.²⁹³⁰

In 2006, Franco co-starred with Tyrese Gibson in Annapolis³¹ and played legendary hero Tristan in Tristan & Isolde, a dramatization of the Tristan and Iseult story also starring English actress Sophia Myles.³² He then trained with the stunt team "The Blue Angels" and received a pilot's license in preparation for his role in Flyboys,³³ which was released in September 2006; the same month, Franco appeared briefly in The Wicker Man, a horror film starring Nicolas Cage, who directed him in Sonny.³⁴ Also in 2006, he made a cameo appearance in the romantic comedy The Holiday.¹⁴³⁵

In 2007 he again played Harry Osborn in Spider-Man 3.³⁶ In contrast to the previous two films' positive reviews,²²²⁷ Spider-Man 3 was met with a mixed reception by critics.³⁷ 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 the end of 2008.²³ In this same year, Franco made a cameo appearance in the comedy Knocked Up.³⁸

He starred in the film Pineapple Express, a comedy co-starring and co-written by Seth Rogen and produced by Judd Apatow, both of whom worked with Franco on Freaks and Geeks.⁹³⁹ In the New York Times review of the film, critic Manohla Dargis wrote: "He’s delightful as Saul, loosey-goosey and goofy yet irrepressibly sexy, despite that greasy curtain of hair and a crash pad with a zero WAF (Woman Acceptance Factor). It’s an unshowy, generous performance and it greatly humanizes a movie that, as it shifts genre gears and cranks up the noise, becomes disappointingly sober and self-serious."⁴⁰ Franco's performance in the film earned him a Golden Globe nomination in the category for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy.¹⁶ In 2008 he also appeared in two films by American artist Carter exhibited at the Yvon Lambert gallery in Paris.⁴¹ On September 20, 2008, James hosted Saturday Night Live.⁴²

Franco starred opposite Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, and Emile Hirsch in Gus Van Sant's Harvey Milk bio-pic Milk (2008).⁴³ In the film, he played Scott Smith, a lover of Harvey Milk (Penn). Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times, in review of the film, wrote: "Franco is a nice match for him [Penn] as the lover who finally has enough of political life."⁴⁴ For his performance in the film, Franco won the 2008 Independent Spirit Award in the category for Best Supporting Actor.⁴⁵

Personal life

In 2008, Franco received his undergraduate degree in English from UCLA.⁴⁶ For his degree, Franco prepared his departmental honors thesis under the supervision of novelist Mona Simpson.⁴⁷ Subsequently, Franco moved to New York to attend graduate school at Columbia University's MFA Writing Program and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts where he studies filmmaking.^48495051

Art—painting in particular—is a talent Franco developed during his high school years while attending the rigorous California State Summer School for the Arts (CSSSA).¹ Franco has said that painting was the "outlet" he needed in high school, and that he "has actually been painting longer than he has been acting."⁵² His paintings were displayed publicly for the first time at the Glü Gallery in Los Angeles, California from January 7, 2006 through February 11, 2006.¹⁵³ Franco can also be seen painting in a scene in Spider-Man 3.⁵⁴

Since April 2006, Franco has been in a relationship with actress Ahna O'Reilly.⁵⁵⁵⁶ In 2008, Franco was named as the new face of Gucci's men fragrance line.⁴⁸⁵⁷

He was selected as the commencement speaker, the youngest, at his alma mater UCLA, on Friday, June 12, 2009. On June 3, 2009, a press release announced Franco's cancellation as UCLA's commencement speaker due to a scheduling conflict, making it the second year in a row that the commencement speaker had canceled the appearance. Bill Clinton canceled last year.⁵⁸

Filmography

Franco in February 2009

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: James Franco

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: James Franco

• James Franco at the Internet Movie Database
• James Franco at Yahoo! Movies