Get ready for Francophrenia! When movie star James Franco returns to General Hospital, his character — serial killer and performance artist Franco — will stage an epic exhibition at L.A.'s Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) as part of his ongoing man-crush on mobster Jason Morgan (Steve Burton). The ABC soap will shoot Franco's grand opening on location at the real MOCA and is currently seeking some 200 GH fans to show up and witness the event. (For details, click here.)

"The name of his new exhibit is 'Francophrenia: Dissolving the Boundary Between Illusion and Reality' — as, yes, that's Francophrenia as in schizophrenia," says GH head writer Bob Guza. "Franco will create this elaborate dog and pony show for Jason, and Jason's non-reaction to it will make Franco pull the ultimate trigger."

No, Guza doesn't mean that literally. Jason feels guilty that his young ward, Michael (Chad Duell), had to spend time in the slammer and was possibly raped there by one of Franco's goons. "Franco will rub Jason's nose in that — and it's like waving a red flag in front of a bull 10 times over," says the scribe. "If Jason has a moment alone with Franco, he's going to get him — and Franco's counting on that. In fact, he's going to make a performance piece out of it."

Call it a case of art imitating...well, art. Franco (the actor) is also working with MOCA and has been shooting a video documentary about his experience on GH that will screen at the museum later this summer. (In a recent Los Angeles Times article, MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch called the Franco-GH connection "the ultimate extension of Andy Warhol guest-starring in The Love Boat.") The actor's posse of videographers — who seem to trail him everywhere these days — will play versions of themselves on GH. And the star's own mother, author Betsy Franco, will appear as Franco's mother, Karen Anderson, in scenes airing July 2.

When the Franco character hits the air June 30, he'll be seen in Port Charles disguised as a homeless man. "He will set a trail of breadcrumbs for L.A. that will also lure Dante [Dominic Zamprogna] and Lulu [Julie Berman]," says Guza. "But he's pretty much involved with everybody. The extent of his reach will surprise you." And how. When GH fan favorite Vanessa Marcil makes her eagerly awaited return as Brenda on August 11, we'll find out even she has a connection to Franco!

James Franco, in full James Edward Franco (born April 19, 1978, Palo Alto, California, U.S.), American actor whose rakish charm and chiseled good looks augmented an ability to bring sincerity and gravitas to characters ranging from addled drug dealers to comic book villains.

The eldest of three children, Franco was raised in Palo Alto, California, by his mother, a children’s book author, and his father, a businessman. A strong student, Franco nonetheless dropped out of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), after his first year in order to pursue acting. While taking classes at Playhouse West in Los Angeles, he secured a series of roles in unremarkable television movies and forgettable teen fare. His casting as a cocky high-school slacker in the Judd Apatow-produced television series Freaks and Geeks (1999–2000)—later a cult favourite—brought him to wider attention.

It was, however, his performance as James Dean in the eponymous television movie (2001) that established him as a major talent. Franco’s evocation of that silver-screen idol won him a Golden Globe Award for best actor in a miniseries or television movie. As Harry Osborn, best friend to Peter Parker in Spider-Man (2002), a film adaptation of the comic book, Franco proved himself adept at shaping his talents to the broad sensibilities of the genre. He returned for two further installments of the franchise, Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007). Films including the crime drama City by the Sea (2002), the mythological retelling Tristan + Isolde (2006), and the World War I fighter-pilot drama Flyboys (2006), though poorly received, showcased Franco’s versatility.

While working his role as a jocular marijuana dealer for laughs in Pineapple Express (2008)—a stoner comedy costarring fellow Freaks and Geeks alumnus Seth Rogen, who collaborated on the screenplay with Apatow—Franco simultaneously evoked the character’s loneliness and disaffection. He won further praise as a lover of gay rights activist Harvey Milk (played by Sean Penn) in Milk (2008) and as Allen Ginsberg in Howl (2010). His performance as a man forced to cut off his own arm after a climbing accident in 127 Hours (2010) earned Franco his first Academy Award nomination for best actor.

In 2011 Franco and actress Anne Hathaway cohosted the Oscar ceremony. Later that year he appeared in Your Highness, a bawdy comedy set in the Middle Ages, and in the big-budget science-fiction film Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Franco subsequently starred as the title character in Oz the Great and Powerful (2013), which imagined a backstory for the enigmatic wizard of popular literature and film. For Spring Breakers (2013), a portrait of youthful debauchery on the Florida coast, he transformed into a garishly styled drug dealer and rapper. He also appeared as an exaggerated version of himself in This Is the End (2013), an apocalyptic comedy codirected by Rogen. In Lovelace (2013), a biopic about pornographic film actress Linda Lovelace, Franco portrayed Hugh Hefner. He evinced a meth-dealing Southerner in the action film Homefront (2013) and a man battling his ex-wife for custody of their son in the drama Third Person (2013).

In the irreverent The Interview, also codirected by and costarring Rogen, Franco played a talk-show host who is tasked with assassinating North Korean leader Kim Jong-Eun. The film, slated for release in December 2014, was pulled by its distributor, Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., in the wake of a hack of the company’s computer system in November and terrorist threats later made by the hackers, who were thought to be acting on orders from North Korea. It was ultimately released on Christmas at a small number of independent theatres as well as on cable television and online streaming video platforms. The following year Franco portrayed convicted murderer Christian Longo in True Story. The film was based on a memoir by former New York Times reporter Michael Finkel (Jonah Hill), who formed a strange bond with Longo after the killer assumed his identity while attempting to evade arrest. Franco’s character in the miniseries 11.22.63 (2016), an adaptation of a Stephen King novel that appeared on television streaming network Hulu, must travel back in time and attempt to prevent the assassination of U.S. Pres. John F. Kennedy.

Styling himself as a latter-day Renaissance man, Franco was also a visual artist and a painter; he characterized his guest appearance (2009–12) as an artist named Franco on the daytime soap opera General Hospital as performance art. He directed, wrote, and starred in several films, among them The Ape (2005) and the Hart Crane biopic The Broken Tower (2011). He also helmed and appeared in adaptations (2013, 2014) of William Faulkner’s novels As I Lay Dying (1930) and The Sound and the Fury (1929) and an adaptation (2013) of Cormac McCarthy’s novel Child of God (1974).

Franco wrote short fiction, some of which was published in Palo Alto: Stories (2010); he also appeared in a 2013 film adaptation. The novelistic Actors Anonymous (2013) spliced autobiographical episodes with imaginings of the lives of struggling actors in Hollywood. Stories from A California Childhood (2013)—a pastiche of childhood experiences, photographs, artwork, and fictionalized memories—were adapted as the film Yosemite (2015), in which he also appeared. His poetry collection Straight James/Gay James (2016) toys with his sexually ambiguous public persona.

Franco eventually returned to UCLA, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in creative writing (2008), and he pursued a series of further degrees, among them a master’s in writing (2010) from Columbia University and a master’s in film (2011) from New York University.

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