#TBT TV: James Franco finds his cause as James Dean (2001)

This week’s TV Throwback Thursday takes us to August 2001. Back then, James Franco was coming off playing high-school burnout Daniel Desario on the brilliant-but-canceled Freaks and Geeks, was still taking uncredited roles as Apartment Guy 3 and was still about a year away from becoming a household name as Harry Osborn in the Spider-Man film franchise. Sept. 11 was still just another day next month. And Lori Acken still went by the delightfully alliterative name Lori Lundquist. Lori got to interview burgeoning star Franco back in the day (he still had two arms), when he starred in the TNT original biopic James Dean. While we can’t remember much about the movie (Does James Dean die at the end?), we do remember around here that Lori thought Franco may have possibly been stoned at the time of the interview. We now know that he almost certainly was.

So here’s Lori née Lundquist’s story on James Franco from the August 2001 issue of Channel Guide Magazine:

The Former Freaks And Geeks Rebel Finds His Cause As Doomed Legend James Dean

By Lori Lundquist

It is mid-afternoon, but James Franco sounds as though he has just now woken up. It could be that the 23-year-old actor is feeling the effects of being the epicenter of a mighty publicity whirlwind. Or, just maybe, Franco learned a little something from his astounding performance in the title role of TNT’s ambitious biopic James Dean — that being a white-hot and well-respected actor does not have to mean you’re always the easiest rooster in the media henhouse.

Nonetheless, a gal gets only so much time with the man who emerged victorious from a pack of contenders for the coveted role, which included Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and other bankable young bucks, so I ask about the script, the actors, the experience. He calls the whole thing a miracle — an opinion viewers are likely to share.

Then I ask him about James Dean. James Franco gets James Dean.

“In the ’50s, the adults were telling the children, ‘Don’t rock the boat. Everything is fine, finally. We’ve got a shot at happiness and economic stability,’” the look-alike star says. “And the teens were expected to follow that, so it caused great frustration. And along comes Dean who expressed that so fully — that lack of voice and that frustration. The way he talked, you know? He screamed — these guttural screams — and he howled and he mumbled. It was just this explosive frustration that so many teens were feeling at the time. Here you have this guy that is finally expressing how the kids feel — not from an adult’s perspective, not cut and dried, black and white — but something they can relate to. And he dies two weeks before the premiere [of Rebel Without A Cause]. They have something that is so real to them and it’s gone. And the combination of that just created this mysterious entity that was larger than any human.”

Suddenly it is clear why, for a few hours, the rebel lives again.

James Dean premieres on TNT August 5 at 8pm.

Photo: TM & (C) 2001 TNT. Credit: Lance Staedler