James Franco’s Brother Dave } Nice!

He wasn’t always known for pushing the envelope. Dave grew up the shy youngest brother of the Franco family. (The middle Franco brother, Tom, is a sculptor in San Francisco.) His interests were primarily photography, soccer, and poetry, including an ode that he wrote to his grandmother. But as his college days were coming to an end, Dave did a career U-turn: at the urging of James’s manager, he plunged into acting full time.

 

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During those early days, he says, he was awkward at auditions, afraid that he was sullying the Franco name. “I was starting from scratch,” he says. “I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I would go in these rooms and people expected a lot, and I was falling flat on my face.” He lost out on the role of Edward Cullen in Twilight, which he now thinks is a blessing, because he says he wouldn’t have been able to handle Robert Pattinson–size fame. Over the last few years, he’s built a steady body of work, most notably as a lead on Scrubs after Zach Braff left the show, and in supporting roles in films like Fright Night and Charlie St. Cloud.

But Dave’s real claim to fame has been a string of hilarious—and usually grotesque—Funny or Die videos. It started innocuously enough back in 2009, with a shtick where his brother James pretends to teach Dave about acting. From there, Dave began writing his own material and working with his friends. His comedy is so raunchy, it pushes boundaries that even Judd Apatow wouldn’t cross. One of Franco’s shorts, You’re So Hot, has him talking dirty to a male classmate (he compares his foreskin to Silly Putty) until they end up embracing without any pants. His other feature, Go Fuck Yourself, is like an X-rated version of The Parent Trap. The final scene shows Franco having anal sex with himself. (The original scene was longer, but it was so nasty that even the Funny or Die team got squeamish. In retrospect, Dave is grateful for their decision. “It was a lot of dirty talk,” he says. “It was bad. It was really bad. There’s a lot of footage that people will never see.”)

Dave is self-deprecating and witty until he’s asked about the origins of his sense of humor. Then he sounds more opaque: “To be honest, it’s not a conscious decision. I don’t think I’m consciously going to make this dirty, raunchy video. I think I’m just drawn to projects in general that are unique and original and maybe a little risqué.” His mom attributes it to their grandfather: “My dad was hysterical,” she says. “He was an oral surgeon, but he was asked to speak around the world because he was so funny.” One of Dave’s best friends, Brian McGinn, a codirector of all his short films, puts it this way: “Out of our group of friends at home, he was never necessarily the funniest. One day, the sense of humor emerged fully formed. It was a surprise for all of us.”

Dave insists that he and his brother are different, and like most young siblings, he doesn’t count himself as the family’s overachiever. James is an insomniac; Dave loves to sleep. James has numerous master’s and doctoral degrees; Dave is still three classes away from his bachelor’s in psychology at USC, having left abruptly for an acting job. “Yeah, he gives me shit!” Dave says. “He’s like, ‘Dude, I’m directing, I’m acting, I’m going to three schools. You can’t finish up your three classes?!’”

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