James Franco has reiterated his
position that he loves taking on gay roles but isn't gay.
In
a cover story for gay glossy The Advocate, Franco once
again denies rumors he's gay.
“Everyone thinks I'm a stoner, and
some people think I'm gay because I've played gay roles,” he says.
“That's what people think, but it's not true. I don't smoke pot.
I'm not gay. But on another level, there's something in me that is
able to play roles like that in a way that's convincing.”
But as the story notes, Franco does
enjoy playing gay. The 32-year-old openly straight actor has
previously said he would take on “100 gay roles as long as they
were always good parts.”
Franco played Harvey Milk's gay lover,
Scott Smith, in Milk, the highly-acclaimed movie about the San
Francisco politician murdered on the steps of City Hall.
Franco plays quintessential beat
generation poet Allen Ginsberg in the film Howl. Ginsberg was
one of the first openly gay celebrities, going so far as to list his
lover, the poet Peter Orlovsky, as his spouse in his Who's Who entry,
and often advocated for gay rights.
Howl opened
this year's Sundance Film Festival in Utah.
And as a film director, Franco has
produced two gay-themed shorts.
Franco's The Feast of Stephen
won a Teddy award at the Berlin Film Festival where it premiered.
Feast features a young gay man whose daydream of naked boys
playing basketball turns violent when the boys chase him down.
Another short, The Clerk's Tale, premiered at France's Cannes
Film Festival. In the film, a gay man is haunted by the monotony of
working at a high-end menswear store. Both shorts are based on
poems.