I disrupted the audience’s suspension of disbelief, because no matter how far I got into the character, I was going to be perceived as something that doesn’t belong to the incredibly stylized world of soap operas. Everyone watching would see an actor they recognized, a real person in a made-up world. In performance art, the outcome is uncertain-and this was no exception. My hope was for people to ask themselves if soap operas are really that far from entertainment that is considered critically legitimate.
James Franco, on his General Hospital guest run
Gawker mocked, as is their wont, but I actually think this is pretty cool. Even if it was just a smokescreen to cover for him taking a paycheck (which it almost surely wasn’t, as Franco could make a lot more working somewhere other than a soap opera right now), I’d still dig it.

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