Call me old fashioned. Or call me a cynic. But I just think some actors use “researching a role” as an excuse to downplay some of the questionable activities they engage in while in pursuit of their “art.”
“I found this guy that was kind of a perfect model,” Franco explained. “He claimed to service both males and females. He took me on one of his jobs.”
At the time, Franco was researching the role of a male prostitute which he was to play in 2002’s Sonny. So he followed the real-life male gigolo role model into a strip club to talk and things went in a different direction than Franco says he had planned.
The gigolo’s friend came over to them and said, ” ‘Oh, you wanna play a prostitute? You want some real research? Then come with us.'” Franco continued: “It went down. Everything went down, as you see in the movies and hear about. The eerie thing is, it was like a movie, but it wasn’t a movie. It was the real thing, happening in front of me.”