James Franco :: From Hippie to Castro Clone in "Milk"

In the opening scene of Milk, Sean Penn (as Harvey Milk) casually encounters James Franco (as Scott Smith) in a New York subway. A playful seduction follows where the straight-laced Penn seduces the hippieish (and adorable) Franco. Soon they are lovers and off to San Francisco for the ride that becomes the bulk of Gus Van Sant's biopic that already is getting the kind of buzz that spells multiple awards in weeks to come. Just this past week the film was nominated for six Satellite Awards, including nods for Penn for Best Actor and Franco for Best Supporting Actor. Both actors were also nominated in the same categories for Independent Spirit Awards.

But it isn't happily ever after for Milk and Smith - their relationship takes a back seat to Milk's political ambition and Smith leaves him just as he's about to embark on a successful run for San Francisco city supervisor after numerous failed tries.

Finding Steve Smith

Since most documentaries and biographies focus on Milk himself, not his boyfriends, Franco had to circumvent mainstream channels to find his research. "There wasn't a ton of footage on Scott in [Rob] Epstein's documentary, [The Times of Harvey Milk]," Franco said. "There's just like five seconds. The best book on Harvey Milk that I've found is 'The Mayor of Castro Street.' Scott kind of comes in and out but he doesn't play a huge role. But it seems like just based on talking to people that knew him, that he was very important in Harvey's life. He was, I think, in the longest relationship of Harvey's life. They were together for four years."

Though Smith is no longer with us (he died of complications from AIDS in the mid-1990s), Franco could rely on secondhand accounts from Milk's other surviving collaborators. "Basically I just talked to Cleve Jones, Danny Nicoletta who worked in the camera shop with Scott and Harvey, Frank Robinson and other people that were around that knew him and kind of took all those stories and boiled it down to some essence or a rounded character that I could play. Then finally Rob Epstein came through. It was like a goldmine. He had old footage of an interview that he'd done with Scott that didn't make it into the movie and he transferred it. It was on film, like an old reel, and he transferred it to DVD for me and I got to see what Scott really sounded like and moved like so that was like the last kind of brick in the building thing."

The film shows how Smith distanced himself from Milk once elected, feeling the burdens of a political life too much to bear. History defines Smith's importance to Milk, so Franco gave him deserving attention.

"It is weird because after Harvey was killed. Scott was like the main torch bearer of Harvey's memory and he was even called the widow Milk even though they were broken up when Harvey died. [Randy] Shilts gives him the biggest acknowledgement at the beginning of his book [The Mayor of Castro Street'] but I guess Harvey is the story. This movie is called 'Milk' and he's the guy so you're not going to find a biography on Scott Smith. I think he probably just served as somebody that would gather information about Harvey but not necessarily himself and probably didn't try and infuse too much of himself in these stories. It was really about Harvey so I guess there's why there's not a ton of it."

Franco grew up in the Bay area but, a child of the '80s, he was not immersed in the story of Harvey Milk. "There was something familiar about him. His face looked familiar you know so I guess maybe I saw a poster of him in San Francisco or something when I was little, but reflecting about that it's surprising to me that I didn't know more about him. I grew up like 45 minutes away from San Francisco and I find it sad that here I am living in the Bay area and I didn't know. Nobody taught me more about who Harvey Milk was."

Playing Milk's lover gave Franco his first gay love scene. He's had lots of experience romancing leading ladies, so Franco took an objective approach. "I mean it was unfamiliar, you know. I'd never done a scene like that with a guy but as far as like the process it's pretty much the same."

Top photo: James Franco.

Bottom photo: The Clone look: James Franco in a scene later in "Milk."

On Kissing Sean Penn

As for making out with Sean Penn, "I don't know what to say. He's okay. It was fine. Yeah, it was fine. Top 30."

(Penn was to have called Madonna after kissing Franco for the first time, exclaiming "I kissed a guy!" And if Chelsea Handler is to be believed, Penn requested additional face time with the young actor as filming continued, much to the surprise of Van Sant.)

Their subway meeting has the feels like a natural encounter, not always flowing with the perfect line at each moment. It was not total improve, but the actors had freedom to keep it natural.

"Most of the scenes in the movie are scripted but what Gus [Van Sant] does that's great and I think helps with that feeling of spontaneity is he A) makes the set extremely relaxed and B) he does give the actors the freedom to improvise if they like. Now it's not the same kind of improvisation as this movie I did before, 'Pineapple Express,' where you're just rolling the camera out and trying new lines and just doing new jokes, but there's a little bit of freedom. What I think that does is when I'm acting with somebody and I know that they can say something that's unscripted at any moment, it makes me more aware and so the actors don't get lulled into just saying the same lines over and over again. It creates a more natural feeling that's more like life because I don't know what you're going to say next in real life. So it kind of simulates that a bit more and I might have thrown in like a laugh that wasn't scripted or something but definitely I think that's what helps with that feeling of spontaneity."

"Milk" portrays the diversity in gay culture. In the broad spectrum, Smith was more low key compared to the flamboyant Cleve Jones. "I think Emile's characterization is based on what the young Cleve Jones was like and so with me, I got that interview with Scott Smith so that combined with what everybody told me about Scott. He wasn't that flamboyant, you know? He was just, I guess what do you say, kind of butch or something? He dressed like there's a way of dressing that a lot of people did at the time called the 'Castro clone.' So they wore like plaid shirts and jeans and construction boots and Scott certainly dressed that way and I actually liked the clothes. I would wear those clothes but my characterization is just based on what I think the real Scott behaved like. The same with Sean. That's kind of how Harvey was so I think it wasn't like oh, we need a flamboyant around here, we need this here. It was just based on the real people."

"Milk" is an important film for many communities: gays, Northern Californians and compassionate human beings at large. Franco himself was drawn in by director Van Sant.

"I'm the biggest Gus fan. Probably my favorite director even before I started acting I was a Gus Van Sant fan and so I would do anything with him. Then when I learned how important this movie was to him, how important the message of this movie is, I wrote Gus and just said I'll do anything in the movie. I would have played the pizza guy. I really would have. Fortunately he gave me this good role."

Franco's popularity is on the rise again after this summer's surprise hit "Pineapple Express" where he played a slacker pot dealer pursued by a corrupt cop after one of his clients, played by Seth Rogen, witnesses the cop commit a murder. He received terrific reviews for his comic turn. "I would love to do another comedy. It was such a great experience. I'm a little wary of like doing a comedy with anybody other than Judd and Seth but just because I love the way they work so much, but I love comedy and hope to do another one."

Amid his blockbuster film roles, Franco managed to finish school, graduating from UCLA with a BA in English Literature. Now he is going for grad school. "I'm at Columbia for writing fiction of an MFA program there and then I'm at a couple schools. I'm at Tisch at NYU for directing films."

Photo: James Franco and Sean Penn in "Milk."