As his stoner movie is coming, the LAT catches up with James Franco

[Mark Kohut]

Portraying Sean Penn's love interest in "Milk," director Gus Van Sant's biopic 
about slain San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk earlier this year, Franco stole 
many an off-camera moment to plow through the works of Thomas Pynchon. "That was 
the craziest seminar I could ever imagine," said Franco. "It was 'Gravity's 
Rainbow,' 'Mason & Dixon,' 'V.' So I'd be reading that on the set and Sean would 
be like, 'What do you make of all that?' "