“I love you!” screamed a girl seated in the buzzing crowd when James Franco made his way to the small stage in Linsly-Chittenden Hall Thursday afternoon.The giggling din grew even louder as Yale’s own paparazzi — students armed with camera phones and digital cameras — snapped away before Franco’s talk began. Approximately 80 percent of the audience was female.
Yale Film Society president Taylour Chang ’11 called the event “a good opportunity to catch Franco on the cusp of doing much more than just acting.” Indeed, though he is best known as an actor, Franco spoke Thursday about his newer roles as a director, screenwriter and student.
Franco, who visited Yale last April to sit in on Harold Bloom’s Shakespeare lecture, is currently enrolled in both the film program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and the Master of Fine Arts program in writing at Columbia University.
“I enjoy film, but I’ve been doing it for 12 years now,” Franco said. “I went back to school because, for me, acting wasn’t enough.”
Franco admitted that he sometimes feels a bit “schizophrenic” straddling the worlds of school and stardom. But he added that the workshops in creative writing courses have forced him to improve his screenwriting abilities and, in turn, his acting.“The accountability enforced by having peers read my writing has been very valuable,” Franco said.
Franco’s love for literature and the English classes he took as an undergraduate at the University of California, Los Angeles continue to affect his work on and off screen and, now, from behind the camera, Franco said.
“All the shorts I’m directing [at Tisch] are based on poetry that I’ve read and adapted”, he said. A number of these short films were screened Thursday night at the Loria Center, followed by a question-and-answer session with the actor.
One student in the audience — a fan of Franco’s work on the television series “Freaks and Geeks” — said the tea was “totally worth missing section for.”
But collaborating with producer Judd Apatow on “Pinapple Express”, Franco said, was one instance of a working dynamic between director and actor in which he felt “incredibly free.”
Franco then answered questions about his acclaimed portrayal of a gay character in last year’s “Milk,” a project he said he pursued because of his love for both the film’s director, Gus Van Sant, and actor Sean Penn. Franco said working on ‘Milk’ inspired him to direct with “an anti-normative approach towards film.”
Franco cited James Dean, Marlon Brando and directors like the Belgian Dardenne brothers as professional inspirations, in addition to his “love affair with books.”
Franco remained after the tea to take photos with fans and sign autographs". Source: www.yaledailynews.com
"In this special collaboration with the Castro Theatre, we present Erased James Franco, artist Carter's new video homage to Robert Rauschenberg's iconic Erased de Kooning Drawing, starring local favorite James Franco. 
Three films screened over the course of the day prepare you for the main event at 8:00 p.m. In a double-feature matinee at SFMOMA, watch Todd Haynes's Safe, the inspiration for some of the scenes in Erased James Franco, and episodes of the cult-favorite TV show Freaks and Geeks hand-picked and introduced by Franco, who starred in the series. In the evening, head to the Castro for John Frankenheimer's Seconds, which is also revisited in Carter's new film, followed by Erased James Franco and a discussion with both actor and filmmaker". Source: www.sfmoma.org
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