For those who don't know, James Franco, movie star, has also become a modern-day renaissance man of sorts. Along with acting he paints, writes (has one book of short stories published) and is currently studying to receive a PhD in English.
From Wikipedia:
I have mixed feelings on Franco's educational endeavors. First, I wonder how much of his celebrity he is using as cache to get through the seemingly super-human work load he takes on. I also admire him for it, though, as it's pretty obvious he is doing it out of a passion for the subject--he doesn't need to worry about pursuing a career for money. He doesn't seem to be faking it. Reading The Iliad on a film set seems like quite a lot of work just for the sake of posturing.Franco has been described as having "an unusually high metabolism for productivity...a superhuman ability to focus".[1] Dissatisfied with his career's direction,[1] Franco reenrolled at UCLA in the fall of 2006 as an English major with a creative writing concentration. Having received permission to take as many as 62 course credits per quarter compared to the normal limit of 19[81] while continuing to act, he received his undergraduate degree in June 2008 with a GPA over 3.5.[81][1][82] For his degree, Franco prepared his departmental honors thesis as a novel under the supervision of Mona Simpson.[1][83] He moved to New York to simultaneously attend graduate school at Columbia University's MFA writing program, New York University's Tisch School of the Arts for filmmaking,[84][85][86][87] and Brooklyn College for fiction writing,[81] while occasionally commuting to North Carolina's Warren Wilson College for poetry.[1] He received his MFA from Columbia in 2010.[88] Franco is a Ph.D. student in English at Yale University[89] and will also attend the Rhode Island School of Design.[1]
Franco developed an aptitude for art—painting in particular—during his high school years while attending the California State Summer School for the Arts (CSSSA).[12] Franco has said painting was the "outlet" he needed in high school, and he "has actually been painting longer than he has been acting."[90] His paintings were displayed publicly for the first time at the Glü Gallery in Los Angeles, California, from January 7, 2006, through February 11, 2006.[12][91] Franco can also be seen painting in a scene in Spider-Man 3.[92] He launched his first European art exhibition in 2011 at Peres Projects in Berlin.[66]
Franco enjoys reading on the set of his films. Pineapple Express producer Judd Apatow has said of him: "He's a very education-minded person. We used to laugh because in between takes he'd be reading The Iliad on set. We still haven't read The Iliad. It was a very difficult book. With him, it was always James Joyce or something."[93]
I do like to see the academic field, especially since it's English, get such a "cool" representative. He is definitely not an intellectual pinhead. I think it's cool that younger kids may see him doing these things and not look at higher education as something just for the ultra-smart, or nerds.
So, anyways, I kind of came in here starting this subject with no clear direction. What do you think? Do you think he's sincere? Do you think he's a positive example of higher learning? I'm also curious if anyone has read his book, and what they think of it.
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Originally Posted by OrphanPip
