Northshore/ Maddox
English IV/ Period 7
October 26, 2012
Modern Day Reniassance Man Usually, when a person hears the word "Renaissance Man", they picture a person who lived some centuries ago, one they would learn about in history books. Some may not realize that there are Renaissance men and women living today. They are people who are succesful in many differnt things and are always in search of new knowledge and understanding of the world they are surrounded by. One person known as a REniassance man in todays society is James Franco. Although James Franco began his professional acting career in 1997 with guest roles on tv shows, it wasnt untill 2000, playing a leading role in the movie Whatever It Takes, for his acting career to skyrocket. After the movie, Franco then began another role in a biographical film playing as James Dean. James Franco was very ambitious to learn more about his character so he could play the role of Deane very well. Franco was so dedicated and determined to play his role excellently he made many sacrafices, some in which most meople wouldnt be able to make. Sacrafices like cutting oof all contact from anyone, including his family, friends, and at the time girlfriend. Not only di James Star in the James Dean biographical film, but he also played major roles in many other movies, like Spiderman and The Guardian, and even directed a documentary of his own. Although Franco loved being an actor and dealing with the movie scene he decided to further his knowledge. Besides acting James also loved writing, music, and poetry. He wrote a book called Palo Alto, named after the city he was raised in. Hte book was a collection of short stories from his own teenage memories and was a very succesful selling book. Franco then, made his dance-theater directorial debut at New York's Stella Adler studios, where he narrated all the performances. It was called Collage and described as a "mixed-media piece", the show