Deep Soap: James Franco Boards The Port Charles Express

This may just go down as the busiest, if not the strangest, week in daytime history. In the past five days, Eric Braeden was written off The Young & The Restless because of a contract dispute. Jonathan Jackson returned to General Hospital. The Bold & The Beautiful announced that Sarah Brown will be joining its cast immediately after her departure from GH. Thorsten Kaye decided to leave All My Children rather than commute to Los Angeles. There is widespread speculation that he will return to One Life To Live as Patrick Thornhart. But all of that was trumped by the weird and wonderful news that movie star James Franco has decided to join the cast of General Hospital for two months.

It seemed like it had to be a joke, especially since the news originated with a Tweet from The Biggest Loser’s Jillian Michaels. But this morning ABC confirmed it. Many have speculated that Franco is researching a movie role. I contacted an ABC publicist who denied that rumor saying, “The research angle is not true. He came to us wanting to be on GH.”

Since Franco has not issued a statement, I am not sure if he approached GH because he was a fan or because he was just interested in trying his hand at soap acting. Since he has the same manager as Steve Burton, GH would have been a natural fit. Former movie stars whose careers have hit a rough patch will occasionally appear on soaps. Sally Kirkland and Shirley Jones both played short term roles on Days of Our Lives. This is the first time that a young, popular movie star in the prime of his career has chosen to appear on a daytime soap. Even Elizabeth Taylor had fallen off the A-list by the time she made her famous appearance as GH’s Helena Cassadine.

Franco’s story will play out for a couple months. So far he is only scheduled to work three days, taping multiple episodes at once. According to ABC daytime, he will be playing, “a mysterious person who comes to Port Charles who will be Jason Morgan’s worst nightmare.” That leaves a wide range of possibilities: another mobster, an FBI agent, the ghost of AJ Quartermaine, a pink tie, an anti-Monavie activist.

Franco seems like a quirky guy. He is enrolled in Columbia’s MFA program in screenwriting. He takes on commercially risky roles that a lot of leading men would avoid, including Harvey Milk’s younger lover and gay poet Allan Ginsburg. He was scheduled to be the commencement speaker at UCLA last spring until some students hilariously started protesting his lack of intellectual qualifications. The guy seems to follow his heart instead of strategically plotting to become as rich and famous as possible. Now he can add GH to his unusual choices. Rather than making him look like a has been, it fits in with his hipster, inconoclastic image. He comes across as the cool guy who, to paraphrase the Freaks and Geeks theme song, does not give a damn about his reputation.

I have often wondered how movie stars would fare shooting at a daytime pace. I applaud Franco for having the courage to find out. Franco has also managed to change the prevailing media narrative about soap operas. Just two weeks ago the story was that soaps were all in their death throes. Suddenly, soaps are hip again. This stuntcasting has generated major publicity. All of the mainstream entertainment publications and news shows are covering Franco’s foray into soap stardom. It’s refreshing to see soaps written about for a positive reason.

The big question is whether the story will be worthy of all the hype. It seems like GH has finally realized that it’s time for a change. Claudia is leaving. Its softening its anti-cop angle with the addition of Dante. Jonathan Jackson is returning. Maxie and Spinelli’s joyous non-wedding reception turned into a hilarious karaoke extravaganza that reminded me of the good old nurse’s ball. I imagine that the writers are tickled pink about writing for someone with the theoretical power to get one of their screenplays greenlit and will come up with something that does not involve toxic balls. I am sure the actors are going to be out to impress the guy who could introduce them to Judd Apatow and Sean Penn.

I hope that this stunt is a smashing success and starts a trend. Imagine DOOL fan Julia Roberts popping up as an Alamain or Will Smith as a recast Malcolm Winters on Y&R. (Okay, they might be too A-list. How about Meg Ryan and Terrence Howard?) The millions of Robert Pattison fangirls might save As The World Turns if he showed up in Oakdale. With all the crazy soap news this week, I won’t be surprised if next week Joss Whedon decides he wants to write AMC for a month or Quentin Tarantino chooses to direct an episode of The Bold and The Beautiful.

Prop of the Week

Days of Our Lives’ Obviously Fake Brick, for clearly not weighing more than two ounces but managing to not only knock Rafe out, but draw blood. Kudos to a hard working piece of foam rubber.

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