JAMES Franco talks about getting into character for Gus Van Sant’s Milk and why research materials were few and far between. He also talks about the reaction to the film at the numerous premieres he has attended…

Q. How much of the story were you aware of when you came on board? And how easy was it to research, given that your character has now passed away?
James Franco: Well, I grew up in Paolo Alto, which is about 45 minutes away from San Francisco, and I was born in 1978 – the year that Harvey Milk was assassinated. When I heard about the movie I did a little research and I wrote to Gus [Van Sant] to express my interest. Before that, however, I didn’t have a script and I wanted to find out what the story was. I was shocked and sad that nobody had told me anything about Milk. Everyone over here [in the UK] has the excuse of being a country away, but it’s kind of crazy that growing up in the Bay Area that I didn’t know anything about him.

There’s the Oscar-winning documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, so maybe that’s how some of the other generations knew about him before. But I’d never seen it. So, I just thought it was an incredibly important story to tell. As far as Scott [my character] is concerned, he passed away in the mid-‘90s. I think Gus met him a couple of times. But I wanted to get it right. Scott was not a public figure like Harvey Milk and so, as an actor, you could think that so long as I got a sense of his behaviour, then only a handful of people are going to really know – friends and family. But I felt like I owed it to him. I wanted to honour his memory. But it was hard to find material on him. He’s in the documentary for five seconds. There’s a lot of great material and books on the time, so I read a lot of those, but as far as actual material that an actor can use to create a character, there wasn’t much, so I really depended on his friends that were around. And then finally, the director of the documentary dug up some old footage that hadn’t made it into the film – it was an interview with Scott from the time. That was like a goldmine to me.

Q. The poster declares “never blend in”. Is that part of your credo for your own career?
James Franco: Of course, as a performer you always want to try and do something new and fresh. The thought of doing something that I knew would blend in from the start and still do it anyway sounds horrible. So, if the credo means “just be yourself and unashamedly be yourself” then sure, that’s something I believe in.

Q. Did you attend any screenings with the people involved?
James Franco: We went to about four premieres in the States, which is a lot. Some people were at the New York one. They told me that I had captured the spirit of Scott, so that was enough for me.

Read our review of Milk

Read our interview with writer Dustin Lance Black

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