As if playing Harvey Milk's boyfriend in the upcoming Gus Van Sant flick weren't proof enough that James Franco is comfortable with Teh Gays, check out this interview where he discusses his "character research" for his role as a gigolo in the little-watched Nicolas Cage flick "Sonny". According to a feature interview at Style.com, Franco befriended a bisexual call boy on Bourbon Street and followed him and one of his colleagues on a three-way "date". The details are pretty steamy for a rising Hollywood type, but we suppose anything goes in the post-Paris Hilton sex tape world ...
James Franco: "I was just standing over near the desk. And they all got in the bed and, I mean, he was out of his head. He was so high on cocaine, I guess, or drunk or whatever, and he was saying, like, ‘Oh, my wife and daughters are coming tomorrow, but this is great.' It was the first time I ever saw a cock ring. He put on a cock ring. And then they both kind of like stood over him, and the guy was, like, stroking both of them and he was like, ‘Ah, all these cocks, I love these cocks.' " (Later, Franco would tell Cage about all this, and it would become the inspiration for when Cage's character in the movie, a pimp called Acid Yellow, snorts a line and then declares, "I love coke cock.")
Chris Heath for GQ: And did you take your shirt off to, so to speak, be in the vibe?
Franco: "Yeah, I guess I had my shirt off."
Heath: You must have felt: This is a very weird thing to see.
Franco: "It was. It was mixed, because on one hand, it was scary, strange to be there—you know, I've done bad things and I have been arrested but I have never been in that situation. So I was feeling all that, but then on the other hand it is just like a human interaction, so there's none of the movie music going on to heighten the situation. And so it had this strange, you know, casualness to it. Just people having sex, or about to have sex, and there I am standing in the room, you know. And so that was weird."
Actually, what's weird is that the story ends there--rather abruptly, might we add. No follow-up questions, Mr. Heath?
• "James Franco Sends His...Regrets" (style.com, via GaySexBlog.net)