Hasta La Creative!

“When I needed McDonald’s, McDonald’s was there for me. When no one else was.”

James Franco offered an unlikely endorsement of the fast-food chain Thursday—at a time when its treatment of employees is under scrutiny—by writing a Washington Post op-ed in which he fondly recalls working there as a struggling actor in the ’90s.

It was 1996. Franco had dropped out of UCLA, against his parents’ wishes, and was trying to pay his own way while sleeping on a couch in a Los Angeles house with two other actors.

“Someone asked me if I was too good to work at McDonald’s,” writes Franco, now 37. “Because I was following my acting dream despite all the pressure not to, I was definitely not too good to work at McDonald’s. I went to the nearest Mickey D’s and was hired the same day.”

And he has quite the stories from the job—how he worked on different accents while manning the drive-through; how he was hit on by a male co-worker who didn’t speak English; how he started eating leftover cheeseburgers even though he’d been vegetarian; how “everyone ate straight from the fry hopper.”

The essay is nostalgic and anecdotal. Yet it’s likely to get some serious attention in part because of McDonald’s current battle with employees over wages. The chain plans to raise the minimum wage for its workers by more than $1, to $9.90, by July 1. But many workers say that’s just not enough. It also says it will to sell off some franchises, so that it won’t have to pay as many workers that increased wage.

Franco acknowledges all of this, and is clearly rooting for the company. “How this cost cut will affect jobs remains unclear,” he writes. “But I want the strategy to work.”

In closing, Franco states plainly that he was “treated fairly well at McDonald’s. If anything, they cut me slack.” And yes, he still eats there, every once in a while.

“After reading Fast Food Nation, it’s hard for me to trust the grade of the meat,” he writes. “But maybe once a year, while on a road trip or out in the middle of nowhere for a movie, I’ll stop by a McDonald’s and get a simple cheeseburger: light, and airy, and satisfying.”

His thoughts on the new Hamburglar remain unclear.

McGarryBowen New York is launching a new broadcast spot for the Droid Turbo entitled “The Fall with James Franco.”

In the spot, James Franco is on a rooftop balcony attempting to help a lady friend retrieve a red scarf when he slips and falls. Most of the ad actually takes place with Franco in midair, in slow-motion, as he uses the phone to tell his friend to meet him downstairs and find a safe landing. He safely lands in a dumpster and then charges his phone in a restaurant, as the spot plugs the Droid Turbo’s ability to charge in fifteen minutes. It’s a pretty ridiculous way to get to this plug, so much so that it might actually detract from the message — even if it makes for a somewhat memorable spot.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

If this Oscar campaign for James Franco is successful, it could mark the first time a boobs-and-bongs flick gets anywhere near the uptight Academy Awards.

Franco, recently seen getting his handsome face punched in for a Comedy Central roast promo, is now the star of some "For your consideration" ads for Spring Breakers, a movie that most Academy voters likely (wisely) skipped. Even so, distributor A24 is asking them to "Consider this shit"—meaning, think about giving Franco a nomination for best supporting actor for his work as gun-toting, cornrow-wearing, rapper-drug dealer Alien. Critics called the flick misogynistic and leering, part sellout and satire, though most major reviews singled out Franco as a bright spot amid a bevy of bikini-clad former Disney babes.

Franco, who was previously nominated for 127 Hours, seems OK with the campaign, telling the Today show on Monday: "My favorite movie that I've done this year is 'Spring Breakers.' And they're doing an … Oscar campaign for it. … I wanted to put that out there for Harmony Korine, the director."

Maybe he could reprise the movie's musical number at the Oscars. Franco as Alien at a white grand piano singing a Britney Spears ballad with his girl posse dancing around in pink ski masks—that sure would bring the gangsta. And it would be more entertaining than his last trip to the show.

You should seriously consider this shit pic.twitter.com/8xCDvCGnlB

— A24 (@A24Films) September 3, 2013

Are you so tired of James Franco's artsy Instagram pictures, his smirking superiority, his pretentious poetry, his cornrow-sporting Spring Breakers white gangsta, his incessant everywhere-ness—so much so that you could just punch him right in his boyishly handsome face? Here's the perfect video snippet for you. The actor-writer-producer-"student of life" already let slip—in a recent Instagram video as laconic and lifeless as his Oscar co-hosting gig in 2011—that he'll be the subject of an upcoming Comedy Central roast. Now the cable network is starting its own promotion, creating the piece of performance art below that a lot of haters will no doubt really dig. Take that, pretty boy! But the 35-year-old star is still standing, of course. He'll play a young Hugh Hefner in the upcoming flick Lovelace, about Linda Lovelace and the porn game-changer Deep Throat, premiering next week. And there's that book of poetry on the way. What a great time for a beatdown. The cable channel roast airs Sept. 2.