HEY, It’s OKAY! (James Franco edition)
Hey collegiettes™, it’s okay…
o To have more than one college degree!
o To have some bags under your eyes from studying; it shows your work ethic.
o To be absolutely obsessed with your cats (Like Franco’s two cuddly cuties, Sammy and Zelda!)
o To have a smile the size of a small country
o To be a total English buff and know it
o And to be a true triple threat (writing, acting, and directing!)
When I first heard rumors that James Franco was visiting BC, I was all over finding clarification. The Internet, the English Department, and Professor Mariani himself confirmed my speculations. Boston College made something that would have only happened in my wildest dreams into a mind-blowing reality. Yes, I got to meet James Franco.
Sure, James Franco is good-looking. Okay, more than good-looking. His brown eyes, big grin, and nonchalant attitude make him intriguing and engaging to fans and admirers of humanity alike. However, Franco, although he lives the good life of any A-list Oscar nominee (and co-host), has the brains to match his beauty.
Franco graduated from his hometown high school – Palo Alto High School – in 1996. He enrolled in UCLA and studied English and drama for a brief amount of time. However, he didn’t finish on time because of a conflict between his family’s wishes for him to study mathematics and his own passion for acting. While studying with drama coach Robert Carnegie at Playhouse West, he simultaneously co-starred in hit TV show Freaks and Geeks (where he got his start) and continued to worked on his undergraduate degree. He was also working on other projects at the same time, like the TV movie James Dean. He eventually attained his bachelor’s degree in English from UCLA in 2008. Since then, he has attended Columbia University (working towards his MFA in English), NYU ‘s Tisch School of the Arts for a degree in filmmaking, and has most recently been working towards his Ph.D. in English from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Still in school, and still producing Oscar-nominated films like 127 Hours, it’s amazing that he can fit in guest appearances at BC!
Despite the prestige of studying at UCLA, Columbia, NYU, and Yale, James Franco told the audience of students and professors that he almost went to Boston College. He chuckled afterward, noting the high female-to-male ratio in the audience and pointing out that he should been an Eagle. Maybe he’ll do another grad degree here? Although even if he did decide to go to BC and get a degree at one of our various grad schools, he probably wouldn’t be hanging out in Chestnut Hill all that often. Along with the world premiere screening of The Broken Tower at BC last Friday, Franco also has four other films in post-production. He’s just a little busy.
The Broken Tower screening was “definitely not Pineapple Express” as James put it, but was nonetheless an incredible event. Having written the biopic screenplay for the movie, Franco also stars as poet Hart Crane. James addressed the BC English Department’s own Professor Mariani, who wrote the biography that inspired the film in the first place, as a new friend. The two men did an intellectually stimulating Q&A session after the film, reflecting on things like how the poetic elements were translated into the cinematography of The Broken Tower.
I woke up on Saturday morning thinking that the sequence of events on Friday was a dream. Being first on line with some friends to enter Robsham, sitting in the third row, seeing the world premiere of The Broken Tower, engaging in an incredible discussion about the art of poetry and Hart Crane’s life, and meeting James Franco himself… it couldn’t have been better. Allison Lantero, a BC senior and fellow Her Campus BC writer, got to attend the reception after the screening. “He was really smiley and patient as could be,” she said. As a theatre major, she got to ask him a few questions about the movie and he returned questions with what a theatre major at BC entails. “Apparently he went to Mary Ann’s after,” she said.
As an English major and a huge fan of Franco’s, I left Robsham on Friday night on cloud nine. Franco told the audience that the only thing that people were going to talk about after leaving the screening was the two homosexual sex scenes and his 10-minute long Crane poetry reading in the film. He was wrong. People will be and are already talking about the vastness of his scholarly knowledge, collegiate background, entrancing talent, and personable, laid-back nature. Oh, and his good looks.
Photo Source:
http://dailyjamesfranco.