Man of Many Layers: James Franco

James Franco is a very meta guy. All that collaboration with performance Kalup Linzy at LA’s MoCA, and on General Hospital, playing a deranged artist named “Franco?” He says it’s about performance in the every day, mixing high and low, and storytelling. There’s another motivation for the frantic energy and boundless energy—his taking on graduate studies, filmmaking, fiction writing, conceptual artistry, you know, the usual—revealed in this summer’s New York profile, which is a manic streak.
 
It’s only natural that Franco would get meta- about his manias. The actor is currently optioning The Adderall Diaries, with plans to write, direct, and star in the adaptation of Stephen Elliott’s genre-breaking addiction memoir. “He seems like a pretty busy guy, so I don’t know when he’s going to find the time for it—but I hope he does,” Elliott notes. Having just starred as Alan Ginsberg in Howl and, even more recently, as a crimson-lipped drag queen on the cover (shot by Terry Richardson) of new transsexual magazine Candy, here’s to keeping things interesting.