These are some photos of James Franco last week in Venice for the Child of God premiere. This movie is one of Franco’s many directorial projects that no one (beyond the artsy fartsy festival crowd) will ever watch. Since this is Franco, the subject matter is typically scandalous and is adapted from a Cormac McCarthy novel about a necrophiliac killer. Because when it comes to Franco, everything must have something to do with sex.

As you might have also heard, Franco recently participated in a Comedy Central roast of himself. I didn’t watch the show because I can only take so much Franco, you know? But the show predictably contained a high quotient of “Franco is gay” jokes. James has spoken on the subject of his sexuality before — most notably when he spoke to Entertainment Weekly about all the gay characters he’s played: “Maybe I’m just gay.” Now Franco is revisiting the topic, and he regrets to inform his public that he is not gay. But he really wishes he was gay:

Why a necrophilia movie? “It’s not that I, in my own life, find dead bodies particularly sexy or anything like that, but in a film, it allows you, in a very extreme way, to deal with a character whose imagination has gone to a crazy place. It also deals with loneliness, uncontrollable compulsion, as well as the artistic impulse. I made a movie about another artist, Hart Crane, who was this isolated, lonely poet, and in his isolation, his imagination bloomed into poetry.”

Does he ever take time off? “I sleep. Yeah, I don’t go on vacation. I don’t really need vacation. This is kind of a vacation! I like film festivals. These are my people, and I get to go to great places and show films and see films. But I don’t need a vacation in the traditional sense, like I would if I had a job I hated. When I’m working on a project like this, I have everyone that I love around me, so I don’t need a break from that.”

Biggest misconceptions about the Franco “It’s that people maybe think I’m gay, they didn’t like my performance at the Oscars, and they think I’m very into myself … and I squint a lot.”

Gay jokes at his roast “There’s two sides to what happened in the roast. If that’s what they were going to make fun of me for, I was like, ‘Great! Bring on the gay jokes!’ because these aren’t insults at all. I don’t even care if people think I’m gay, so it was like, ‘Awesome!’ I mean, I wish I was … I wish I was gay. I mean … we don’t have to go into it. But as far as that larger phenomenon that you’re talking about that happens to other actors, part of it is that movies are a place where people can project things and identify with characters, and it’s the same thing with actors outside of their roles-and its been that way since Hollywood was around. That’s why there’s a lot of conjecture. That’s been one of my things, too. My relationship with my public image over the past four or five years has just become weirder and weirder, because I look at it and it’s me, and it’s not me, so if other people want to use that for their own purposes or needs, I’m fine with it.”

[From Daily Beast]

I’ve said this before about Franco — part of me realizes the guy is a master at manipulating his own image. His willingness to appear sexually ambiguous seems like part of that tactic. I feel like Franco thinks people will find him to be more of an ARTist if they think he’s gay, so he plays to that reputation. Still, his attitude to being called gay is admittedly pretty cool. Some other straight actors would take offense at being called gay, so I guess Franco wins this battle by taking gay jokes as a compliment. But you know Pink did it first, and she did it better.

Photos courtesy of WENN