A Guide to James Franco's Weirdest Side Projects

Image via Complex Original

Considering that James Franco dropped out of UCLA in order to pursue a full-time acting career, it's actually quite admirable that he would go back to school at the height of his career in order to complete his degree. But there's "going back to school" and then there's "going back to school, Franco-style," which includes the following: re-enrolling at UCLA in 2006 and graduating two years later. Then enrolling—simultaneously—in Columbia's MFA writing program and NYU'S MFA filmmaking program, all while taking additional fiction writing classes at Brooklyn College and studying poetry at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina.

Wait, we're not done!

After earning his (multiple) graduate degrees, he began working toward his Ph.D. in English at Yale. Plus taking art classes at the Rhode Island School of Design. He was accepted into the University of Houston's prestigious doctoral program in literature, too, but ultimately declined the invitation.

Paging Professor Franco! Jimmy's predilection for academia extends to both sides of the lecture hall. In the fall of 2011, James became "Mr. Franco" to a class of NYU students looking to turn their poetry into films. Which we guess is a thing? (The final cinematic result, Tar, screened at SXSW earlier this week.)

Since his Washington Square stint, Franco has subsequently taught short filmmaking at USC and screenwriting at UCLA, where he's also an adjunct English professor.

Franco gave his best Blue Steel in 2008, when he became the face—and wet T-shirt-wearing body—of the smartly named Gucci by Gucci cologne. A year later, Salon.com named him its "Sexiest Man Living."

Some might consider it a conflict of interest, but in 2011 The Paris Review enlisted Franco and his alleged writing chops to delve into such deep pieces of cinema as Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 and Puss in Boots. Franco has subsequently played the role of journalist again, writing on all manner of subject for a diverse slate of publications, including Playboy, Vanity Fair, and n+1.

Of course, Franco's real journey as a published author began in 2010, when Scribner published Palo Alto, his Bret Easton Ellis-like collection of short stories inspired by his wild teenage years. Reviews were mixed, but not terrible.

And hey! It's being turned into a movie.

If there was one thing Franco-philes were hoping for on Inauguration Day in January, it was that James might wax some verse on Obama's newly-minted second term in office. And boy did he deliver! Franco wrote a poem, Obama in Asheville, which dropped more names than it did truths, and it went viral. With stanzas like this, how could it not?

On the phone once, Cormac McCarthy lamented

The two added wings and the spa, and marveled

At the original structure, They pulled the stones

From the mountains and brought them down on mules.

and

I wrote my friend Frank about what I could do, but he was unresponsive.

I went to class and then the little burrito place where they know me,

And finally at night I got Frank's email on my phone and pulled over

On the side of Warren Wilson Road, past the school barn with the WWC --

OK, so this side gig isn't totally unexpected; plenty of actors moonlight as producers, writers, and directors. But the regularity with which Franco announces/releases/makes/talks about new projects would be palpitation-inducing to most. Some of the highlights?

In 2007 there was Good Time Max, a feature which Franco wrote, directed and starred in; it premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Since then, his oeuvre has taken a sort of strange/indie/avant-garde turn. In 2010 he turned a student film about his time spent hosting Saturday Night Live into a real documentary (it, too, screened at Tribeca).

At the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, Franco premiered Three's Company: The Drama, a multimedia project that played up the dramatic side of the goofy 1970s sitcom. Another student project, The Broken Tower—about the life of poet Hart Crane—screened at the Los Angeles Film Festival that same year (and starred Michael Shannon).

Franco's got a production company, Rabbit Bandini. And as a writer-director, he has two films—Child of God and Black Dog, Red Dog—currently in post-production. He's also directing, scripting and starring in a big-screen adaptation of William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, which he'll immediately follow up with the biopic Bukowski.

Of course Franco fancies himself a musician. There are few "serious actors" who don't. For Franco, it was a case of art imitating art, when he worked with performance artist Kalup Linzy on General Hospital (more on that later). They then formed a band—Kalup and Franco—and released an album in 2011.

A year later, Franco was talking about his new band, Daddy, which he created with college buddy Tim O'Keefe. Their first single, "Love in the Old Days," dropped in September. Franco's Spring Breakers co-stars—who appear on the cover—seem to dig it.

R.E.M. hearts Franco. Why else would they ask him to direct two of their music videos—"Blue" and "That Someone Is You?" In the latter, Franco stars, too, as a modern-day Danny Zuko in the final scene from Grease (with the role of Sandy very oddly being played by a giant cat head).

In "Blue," Franco directs the undirectable... and by that we mean Lindsay Lohan.

Seth MacFarlane could have learned a thing or two about a post-Oscar shit storm from James Franco, who hosted the ceremony alongside Anne Hathaway in 2011—the same year he was nominated as Best Lead Actor for 127 Hours.

It. Did. Not. Go. Well.

Franco was criticized for his low energy. Which he blamed on hosting alongside the ever-ebullient Hathaway. The man has got a point. He fared a lot better with his hosting gigs on Saturday Night Live in 2008 and 2009.

But maybe he was intentionally low energy. Had you thought of that?

Franco is no stranger to the small screen. He rose to fame playing burnout Daniel Desario on the much-loved (and much too-short-lived) Freaks & Geeks. But any actor knows that unless you score a plum gig on an HBO series like Boardwalk Empire, you don't go back to television when you've made a splash on the big screen.

In late 2009, Franco made what can only be described as his most perplexing decision: He joined the cast of soap stalwart General Hospital, playing an artist named Franco. (Note the all-black ensemble above; only artists wear all-black, right?)

(The real) Franco called it performance art; the rest of the world called it a very, very strange career move. He reprised the role in 2011.

Taking a cue—yet again—from his General Hospital character, in 2010 Franco held an exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art, L.A. based on his soap opera character (who held an exhibit at the same museum, albeit a fictional one).

Several other real-life exhibits have followed, with Franco often preferring a multimedia approach to his work. He worked with Gus Van Sant to create Unfinished, featuring behind-the-scenes footage and outtakes from My Own Private Idaho (which Franco has stated is his favorite movie); it screened at New York's Gagosian Gallery (and was excellent). He's also exhibited paintings, photographs, video art, and installations worldwide.

In 2012, he even shot a campaign for Seven for All Mankind.

No, he didn't don a tutu. Nor was there any off-the-shoulder sweatshirt, Jennifer Beals-esque "Maniac" action. In fact, he didn't even dance. But as part of his ongoing quest to become a renowned figure in the art world, in May 2011 Franco staged Collage, a hybrid dance-theater-music-poetry performance—which he also narrated—at New York's Stella Adler Studios.

When the brain trust behind NASCAR decided they needed a publicity prop to instruct its drivers to start their engines, they looked no further than James "I Can Do Anything" Franco.

On February 24, he served as Grand Marshal of the Daytona 500. We're still trying to figure out the punchline...

After an aborted attempt to revive Sweet Bird of Youth in 2011, in which he would have starred opposite Nicole Kidman, Franco recently revealed to Stephen Colbert that he's set to make his Broadway debut in Of Mice and Men. He offered no further details regarding dates or co-stars. But he did reveal that he'll be playing George. Which is disappointing: Imagine what Daniel Desario could've done with Lennie!