James Edward Franco (born April 19, 1978) is a Golden Globe-winning American actor, director, screenwriter, film producer, and artist. He began acting during the late 1990s, appearing on the short-lived television series Freaks and Geeks and starring in several teen films. In 2001, he received worldwide attention and praise for his portrayal of James Dean in the made for television biographical film James Dean, which earned him a Golden Globe for Best Actor.
He became well known since the early 2000s when he was cast as Harry Osborn in the Spider-Man films. In 2005, he starred in the war film The Great Raid, in which he played Robert Prince, captain of a Ranger Battalion who rescued prisoners of war from the Cabanatuan prison camp during World War II. The following year, he had starring roles in three movies, Tristan & Isolde, Annapolis, and Flyboys. In 2008, he starred in the comedy/stoner film Pineapple Express opposite his Freaks and Geeks co-star Seth Rogen. He has appeared in Nights in Rodanthe and will play a prominent role in the upcoming film Milk.
James is the son of Betsy (née Verne), a poet, author and editor, and Doug Franco. His maternal grandmother, Mitzi Levine Verne, runs the Verne Art Gallery, a prominent art gallery in Cleveland, Ohio. Franco's father is of Portuguese and Swedish descent and Franco's mother is Jewish, a descendant of immigrants from Russia. Franco grew up in California with his two younger brothers, Tom and Dave, and graduated from Palo Alto High School in 1996, where he was elected by his senior class as the student with the "best smile". He then enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as an English major, and studied acting. He dropped out after his freshman year and chose to pursue a professional career as an actor, taking acting lessons with Robert Carnegie at Playhouse West.
In 2008, Franco received his undergraduate degree in English from UCLA. He moved to New York to attend graduate school at Columbia University's MFA Writing Program and New York University's prestigious Tisch School of the Arts.
Art—painting in particular—is a talent Franco developed during his high school years while attending a rigorous summer school for the arts, California State Summer School for the Arts (CSSSA). Franco has said that painting was the "outlet" he needed in high school, and that he "has actually been painting longer than he has been acting." His paintings were displayed publicly for the first time at the Glü Gallery in Los Angeles, California from January 7, 2006 through February 11, 2006. Franco can also be seen painting in a scene in Spider-Man 3.
|
Pineapple Express 
Nights in Rodanthe
Milk
Howl
