James Franco

James Edward Franco born April 19, 1978 in Palo Alto, California, U.S. He is an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, author, painter, performance artist and professor at New York University. He left college in order to pursue acting and started off his career by making guest appearances on television series in the 1990s. Franco landed a lead part on the short-lived cult hit television program Freaks and Geeks and later achieved recognition for playing the titular character in the TV biographical film James Dean (2001), for which he was awarded a Golden Globe Award. He achieved international fame with his portrayals of Harry Osborn in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy.

Franco is critically acclaimed as an actor. He has done both dramatic and comedic work in projects and has appeared in an eclectic range of projects since the 2000s, ranging from period to contemporary pieces, and from major Hollywood productions to less publicized indie films, as well as fantasy movies to biopics and soap operas. Other notable films include Pineapple Express, a stoner comedy that earned him his second Golden Globes nomination, the Harvey Milk-biopic Milk as well as Danny Boyle's 2010 movie 127 Hours, about real-life mountain climber Aron Ralston's struggle to free his hand from a boulder. His performance in 127 Hours earned him nominations for many high-profile awards, including the Academy Awards, Golden Globe and SAG Awards.

Franco has hosted Saturday Night Live twice as well as the 83rd Academy Awards with Anne Hathaway. He volunteers for the Art of Elysium charity. He is currently teaching a class at New York University about transferring poetry to film.

In 2008, he was named as the new face of Gucci's men's fragrance line. Regarding his secular upbringing, Franco told The Guardian that he feels as if he has "missed out on the Jewish experience", but has been told not to worry about that by his Jewish friends. He said in the same interview that he likes "the idea of religion as a source of community." When asked if he was a "believer", he responded "In God? I don't know. Yes. To a certain extent. It's a complicated question." After meeting on the set of Whatever It Takes, Franco dated co-star Marla Sokoloff for five years. He was in a relationship with actress Ahna O'Reilly for several years since around 2006. He confirmed their separation in an interview for Playboy magazine's August 2011 issue, saying that his interest in education got between them.