Happy birthday, James Franco! Enjoy 35 photos and 35 facts about the actor, filmmaker, teacher and author for his 35th birthday! Plus, he’s easy on the eyes, right ladies?
James Edward Franco was born on April 19, 1978, in Palo Alto, California.
He shares the same birthday as Dudley Moore, Kate Hudson, Hayden Christensen, Tim Curry, Jayne Mansfield and Jesse James.
His grandmother, artist Mitzi Levine Verne, runs the Verne Art Gallery in Cleveland.
Franco’s mother says that when he was four years old, she had to explain death to him after a family friend passed away. He began crying and said, “But I don’t want to die! I have so much to do!”
As a teen, he was known as Ted, short for his middle name. His family also called him Ted.
In high school, he was arrested for underage drinking. And for graffiti.
He graduated from Palo Alto High School in 1996. Among the school’s other famous alumni: Joan Baez, ‘Perry Mason’ creator Erle Stanley Gardner, ‘The Lion King’ director Rob Minkoff, and Grace Slick.
After high school, Franco attended UCLA for one year, before dropping out to pursue an acting career.
He was a vegetarian — until he started working at McDonald’s.
Before landing his breakout role in ‘Freaks and Geeks,’ his resume had mostly consisted of a Pizza Hut commercial and a minor role as high-schooler Jason in the Drew Barrymore romantic comedy ‘Never Been Kissed.’
Franco was not a smoker until he played James Dean in TNT’s 2001 made-for-TV biopic. That particular bit of Method acting turned him into a two-packs-a-day smoker.
To prepare for ‘James Dean,’ he also cut himself off from friends and family for three months (including his then-girlfriend, actress Marla Sokoloff) to try to experience Dean’s loneliness. Sokoloff told TV Guide at the time, “You can’t help but be insulted that he doesn’t want to see you or talk to you. After the initial shock and being devastated, I supported his decision as much as I could.”
After seeing Franco’s turn as James Dean, Robert De Niro personally chose him to play his drug-addicted son in the 2002 movie ‘City by the Sea’.
To play a homeless drug addict in the film, he actually lived on the street for a while.
He first screen-tested for the role of Peter Parker in ‘Spider-Man.’ Instead, Sam Raimi cast him as best friend (and future nemesis) Harry Osborn.
Franco’s real-life brother Dave is also an actor, and starred on the final season of ‘Scrubs.’
He earned a pilot’s license while making the movie ‘Flyboys.’
In 2006, at age 28, he returned to UCLA. He graduated with a 3.5 GPA and a degree in English just two years later.
Writers Mona Simpson, Gary Shteyngart and Michael Cunningham have been among his university professors.
His mother is the author of children’s books like ‘Mathematickles,’ ‘Messing Around on the Monkey Bars’ and ‘A Curious Collection of Cats.’
A math whiz when he was younger, Franco once earned an internship at Lockheed Martin.
Someone snapped an infamous photo of him falling asleep during a lecture at Columbia. Now he says he’s paranoid about dozing off in public, like on the subway or an Amtrak train, because he worries that someone will snap another photo of him snoozing.
To appear stoned in 2008’s ‘Pineapple Express,’ he says he just rubbed his eyes and spoke slowly.
What was he thinking when he was kissing Sean Penn while filming ‘Milk’? “Well, here I am, kissing Spiccoli,” he said during an interview on NPR’s ‘Fresh Air.’
In case you were wondering, no, he isn’t, he told Advocate magazine.
In fact, Franco has been dating actress Ahna O’Reilly (‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’) since 2006.
A 2007 gossip item linked Franco to Lindsay Lohan, suggesting that she freaked out after he rebuffed her romantic advances, including refusing to accept an expensive watch she tried to give to him.
He had a poster of Justine Bateman in ‘Satisfaction’ on his bedroom wall when he was a teen.
Sharon Stone has purchased some of his paintings.
So has Blink-182 singer Tom DeLonge.
He considers his recurring role on ‘General Hospital’ to be performance art.
For his role as ‘GH’s’ Franco, he sometimes had to learn 100 pages of script per day. The length of the average two-hour movie script, in total: 120 pages.
His production company is Rabbit Bandini Productions, which he runs with friend and producer Vince Jolivette.
Franco dressed in drag for the cover of Candy magazine’s Fall-Winter 2010-2011 issue.
You can dress him yourself at Stardoll.com.