“Doing Milk was an incredible experince,” James Franco tells N.Y. Times writer Lynn Hirschberg in a recently-posted video interview. “I talked [to director Gus Van Sant] about how My Own Private Idaho and Drugstore Cowboy and how [he’s] been a hero of mine since I was a teenager, and of course Sean Penn as well.
“I will be asked about a million times what it was like to kiss Sean Penn. The few times I run into paparrazzi, that’s their new annoying thing. It was uncomfortable. The first time we did it…we didn’t do it many times, but the first kiss of the film, he had on…he grew a beard but he needed a slightly thicker beard so he had some [makeup] hairs interwined in his real hairs, and these hairs kept getting in my mouth. Uncomfortable. Not that fun. But yeah, Jeff Spiccoli…I got to make out with him.”