James Franco: Soap Role Is Performance Art

Guest stint on General Hospital will go down in art history
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 4, 2009 9:28 AM CST

Finally, James Franco explains to us what in the world he’s doing guest starring on General Hospital: Performance art. In a look at the genre with which he is “obsessed,” Franco writes about its history—and his newfound spot in said history—for the Wall Street Journal.

  • In appearing on the soap, he says, he's out of context, as he would be if he wore Green Goblin makeup and tried to fly on a New York subway platform. "It would be about inserting myself in a familiar space in such a way that it becomes stranger than fiction, along the lines of what I'm doing on General Hospital."

  • “My hope was for people to ask themselves if soap operas are really that far from entertainment that is considered critically legitimate.”
  • “Performance art can seem pretentious.”
  • “After all of the Franco episodes are aired, my character's storyline will be advanced in a special episode filmed in a ‘legitimate’ New York gallery. One more layer will be added to this already layer-heavy experiment.” Speaking of pretentious…
(More James Franco stories.)

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