James Franco.
Photo: Theo Wargo/NBC
James Franco has played plenty of gay characters onscreen, and his next project will continue that trend … sort of. The actor will star this summer in a fact-based movie about Michael Glatze, a gay activist who leaves San Francisco, renounces his past, and comes out as an ex-gay Christian fundamentalist. “Page Sixâ€Â broke the news and Vulture can add that the film, produced by Gus van Sant and directed by Justin Kelly, is based on Benoit Denizet-Lewis’s buzzy 2011 New York Times article “My Ex-Gay Friend.†Production will begin in July, and Franco will juggle his leading-man duties while also starring in the Broadway production of Of Mice and Men, because the boy does like to multitask.