James Franco calls 'General Hospital' role 'performance art.'

[Brian Damage]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...372878136.html

In a Wall Street Journal column that probably got a B+ when it was first handed in as university coursework, James Franco asserts that what he’s been doing in his guest-starring role on General Hospital qualifies as performance art. With his character “Franco, just Franco,” Franco says, “I disrupted the audience’s suspension of disbelief, because no matter how far I got into the character, I was going to be perceived as something that doesn’t belong to the incredibly stylized world of soap operas. Everyone watching would see an actor they recognized, a real person in a made-up world. In performance art, the outcome is uncertain—and this was no exception. My hope was for people to ask themselves if soap operas are really that far from entertainment that is considered critically legitimate. Whether they did was out of my hands.”

[80sTrivia]

I was curious as to why he would take a role on a soap opera...

[catlover79]

He doesn't seem to have made friends with the cast. From last week's Soap Opera Digest:

The GH cast was miffed when they received a memo under their doors instructing them not to bother James Franco, get autographs or take photos with him. "It was totally insulting," says an insider. "We're all actors."

Hey, I'd be mad, too!! Seems someone's head is a couple of sizes too big!!

[JT]

Originally Posted by catlover79

He doesn't seem to have made friends with the cast. From last week's Soap Opera Digest:

The GH cast was miffed when they received a memo under their doors instructing them not to bother James Franco, get autographs or take photos with him. "It was totally insulting," says an insider. "We're all actors."

Hey, I'd be mad, too!! Seems someone's head is a couple of sizes too big!!

Those notes weren't left by Franco or his people, though...at least not to my understanding. I read that it was the ABC people who did it. I don't see Franco doing anything like that...he's extremely down-to-earth and level-headed. A little eccentric, but that's what makes him down-to-earth.

[catlover79]

Originally Posted by JT

Those notes weren't left by Franco or his people, though...at least not to my understanding. I read that it was the ABC people who did it. I don't see Franco doing anything like that...he's extremely down-to-earth and level-headed. A little eccentric, but that's what makes him down-to-earth.

Oh, OK. That part I didn't read. If that's the case, I apologize to Mr. Franco.