Name: James Franco
Birth Name: James Edward Franco
Birthdate: April 19, 1978
Birthplace: Palo Alto, California
1-MINUTE RESUME FOR JAMES FRANCO
After a few bit parts in teenybopper flicks like
Never Been Kissed and
Whatever It Takes, Franco's acting career got a good boost with a role as a slacker burnout on the short-lived but critically acclaimed series
Freaks and Geeks. After that he landed his first major role in the TNT biopic
James Dean, and followed it up with an even higher-profile role, that of evil Harry Osborn in
Spider-Man and its sequels. He has balanced the big-budget comic book movies with more serious stuff like
Tristan + Isolde,
Annapolis and
Flyboys.
5 Things:
1. An avid painter, he won over onetime girlfriend Marla Sokoloff with a painting he did of Venus.
2. He learned to fly a plane for Flyboys.
3. Unbeknownst to anyone, while working on Freaks and Geeks, Franco visited the high school and hometown of the show's creator.
4. Franco directed, wrote and financed two small budget films, The Ape and Fool's Gold.
5. The thesp majored in English at UCLA because his parents weren't
crazy about him going to an arts college; he dropped out after a year.
Quote:
"I was just getting into acting, so I'd practice different accents on
the girls. I'd be French and then Italian. One girl who liked me came
around the (McDonald's) drive-through again and said, 'Could you give
me some Italian lessons? I don't know what she was thinking, because I
was doing an awful Italian accent."
—
Chicago Sun-Times, Jan. 22, 2006
Awards:
2002: Golden Globe: Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television, James Dean
FILMS
The Pineapple Express - (2008) - Actor
Spider-Man 3 - (2007) - Actor
An American Crime - (2007) - Actor
In the Valley of Elah - (2007) - Actor
Tristan & Isolde - (2006) - Actor
Annapolis - (2006) - Actor
Flyboys - (2006) - Actor
The Dead Girl - (2006) - Actor
The Ape - (2005) - Director, Actor
The Great Raid - (2005) - Actor
Spider-Man 2 - (2004) - Actor
The Company - (2003) - Actor
Deuces Wild - (2002) - Actor
Sonny - (2002) - Actor
City by the Sea - (2002) - Actor
Spider-Man - (2002) - Actor
At Any Cost - (2001) - Actor
James Dean - (2001) - Actor
Whatever It Takes - (2000) - Actor
