Oh, James Franco. Now that's a sentence we've uttered more than a few times when our boy wonder makes news. He constantly keeps us on our toes with stunts that we're pretty sure he doesn't clear with his publicist. First, he went to Columbia and acted all student-like. Then he had a stint on General Hospital, which we didn't watch because, well, boss says we can't watch our soaps anymore at work and we prefer Days of Our Lives anyway.
But lately it seemed as if Franco was trying to have a normal life, well as normal as the life of an actor can be. He was all set to appear in Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth alongside Nicole Kidman, but his publicist announced late last month Franco was pulling out of the production, which would have marked his Broadway debut. And now Franco's going all artsy on us. He and famed director Gus Van Sant were in Toronto recently promoting their art exhibition and pair of new films, My Own Private River and Idaho, both inspired by Van Sant's classic My Own Private Idaho, which apparently happens to be a favorite of our boy wonder.
But the artsy part's not that surprising. No, we expect nothing less from an actor who's getting his doctorate at Yale and probably working on a symphony while he's in between study sessions. According to CTV News, the surprise happened this weekend when a young Franco fan -- 13 years of age, to be exact -- was treated to a personal moment with the multi-talented thespian.
Young Macy Armstrong was at the Toronto Film Festival, where Franco was discussing his artistic endeavors when he suddenly spotted the teen wearing his face on her shirt and in possession of three Franco-centric works of art: the collage above, a work inspired by the 127 Hours poster and a portrait of the actor made from yarn. Yarn. This is how it all went down after that, in our minds at least:
Franco: Killer paintings. I like the painting of the guy stuck under a boulder. Who's that supposed to be?
Armstrong: Um, that's you in 127 Hours.
Franco: Cool. Can I have it?
Armstrong: OMG! For sure! Will you autograph my copy of Tiger Beat?
After Franco told his young fan he wanted to buy her work, the crowd laughed but our boy wonder wasn't joking. He seriously wanted that fan art. So much so that he got his people to get Armstrong's contact information so he could purchase the teen's work.
One might think the actor was just humoring a fan, but no. That's not how Franco rolls. Instead he really had his people contact Armstrong, but as the teen reported on her Tumblr, Oh Mr. Franco, she just couldn't charge the actor for her fan art.
She also shared her excitement about the encounter with the actor, writing "He looked at me, he spoke to me, and I'm pretty sure we mentally got married!"
Congratulations, you two, on the marriage of minds. Anyone who can stitch a portrait of our boy wonder from yarn deserves him in all his glory. Guess we'll stop working on that James Franco-chewing-gum bust.
