So I’d been a fan of that film for a long time, and then eventually I played James Dean, so I learned a lot more about what went into that film and the people behind it. I guess I could relate to the feelings, and I was drawn to the performances and the characters. I remember watching Rebel Without a Cause in high school, before I was a professional actor, and just being drawn to it, you know, like a lot of teenagers over the last 50 years, because it spoke the language of youth. Have you always had a fascination with these guys?
#JAMES FRANCO RECENT GAY MOVIES MOVIE#
You, of course, played James Dean, and now you’ve made a movie about his co-star. I think everyone’s first exposure to Sal Mineo is Rebel Without a Cause, which is a heartbreaking performance and in many ways the soul of the movie. We caught up with Franco (who was on-set shooting another movie, obviously) for a chat about Sal, his interest in James Dean and gay subculture, and - most importantly - where he thinks Daniel Desario would be today. Sal - an intimate portrait of the final day in the life of the gifted, tragic Rebel Without a Cause star Sal Mineo, who was murdered in 1976, at age 37. Leather Bar), adaptations of Faulkner ( As I Lay Dying) and Cormac McCarthy ( Child of God), and this week’s Oh yeah, he’s directed some movies, too: a riff on William Friedkin’s Cruising ( Interior.
He’s starred in one of the year’s highest-grossing movies ( Oz: The Great and Powerful), given one of its best performances (in Spring Breakers), and appeared in several more films, all while generously lampooning his dilettante public persona both on screen (in This is the End) and off (for Comedy Central’s Celebrity Roast). Nonetheless, the actor-director-novelist-artist-film professor-future Galactic President is on a roll in 2013, even by his hyper-productive standards. When it comes to James Franco, the notion that he’s “having a busy year” is kind of a redundant point. Franco and Val Lauren, his lead actor in Sal.