James Franco's Harvey Who?

9 months ago 12th Feb 13:30

James Franco had never heard of Harvey Milk before starring in his biopic.

The 'Pineapple Express' actor stars opposite Sean Penn in 'Milk', which follows the life of America's first openly gay politician, and was forced to undertake extensive research before filming his role as Harvey's boyfriend Scott Smith.

The actor said that learning as much as he could about Harvey and Scott helped him with his portrayal of the lover

James said: "I wasn't aware of him, which is sad I think, especially considering I grew up less than an hour away from San Fransisco.

"So when I heard that Gus Van Sant was doing this movie about this guy called Harvey Milk, I did some research and learned what the story was. It was surprising I didn't know anything about him before.

"I saw that as one of the more important aspects of the movie that it would really get his story out; they're not going to teach it in schools, you know."

The actor said that learning as much as he could about Harvey and Scott helped him with his portrayal of the lover.

He added to Attitude magazine: "I was just focusing on who he was and he didn't seem like a particularly flamboyant personality. I never thought 'I'm playing a gay character and I had better indicate that.' "