Just James Franco

If you see a dickhead on the street this Halloween, chances are it could be James Franco. Erin Overbey reports on Franco’s New Yorker Festival appearance over the weekend:

“‘What’s it like being a stoner icon?,’ Lauren Collins asked James Franco, last night at the Cedar Lake Theatre. ‘You know, people think I’m stoned anyway,’ Franco replied. ‘I don’t mind. People think you’re a stoner, they think you’re a fun, nice guy.’

The conversation moved to biopics. Franco has starred in several, including ‘James Dean’ (a TV movie) and ‘Milk,’ and he will play the poet Allen Ginsberg in the soon-to-be-released ‘Howl.’ After a clip from ‘Milk’ was shown, Franco admitted that he still had the prosthetic penis he wore in the film, and that he’d actually made a mask out of it for another film.”

Asked if there was someone else he was dying to play, the actor mentioned that he had bought the rights to Hart Crane’s ‘The Broken Tower.’ Crane was gay and committed suicide at sea in 1932. “The Broken Tower”, one of his final poems, (and also the name of a biography of the poet by Paul Mariani), was written following a heterosexual affair, after which he continued sleeping with men.