He’s spoken out about captive orcas, he’s pledged to help chimps and now animal lover and actor James Franco is partnering up with Farm Sanctuary to help farm animals.

The Oscar nominated actor appears in a new video for the organization that rescues abused farm animals and gives them a second chance at life
“It’s amazing to me how easily we can compartmentalize our relationships with animals. It’s easy to draw that distinction between the animals we eat like pigs, cows and lambs and animals that we live with like dogs and cats,” he explains in the video while images of the happy animals at the Farm Sanctuary fill the screen.

He goes on to talk about his own relationship to all animals and how to him, such a distinction does not exist.

“I can’t help but compare farm animals to my cats,” he says of Sammy and Zelda, his beloved felines. “I look into their eyes and realize they’re someone, not just something.”

But cats are not the only animals he’s looking at. Franco also says when a cow comes up to you and gives kisses, it’s just “incredible” and that’s the reason why he supports “Farm Sanctuary’s work to protect farm animals from cruelty and change the way society views and treats these incredible animals.”

He then urges people to check out Farm Sanctuary’s website and work because “at the end of the day, it’s all about compassion and a more compassionate world begins with you.”

We couldn’t have phrased it any better!

source

He worked at McDonald’s while trying to break into acting

“All I know is that when I needed McDonald’s, McDonald’s was there for me.”

So begins James Franco‘s adoring op-ed about McDonald’s published in Thursday’s The Washington Post, but perhaps “op-ed” is the wrong word—the piece is really more of a love letter to the struggling franchise, where Franco worked in the ’90s when he was first trying to break into acting, had just dropped out of UCLA and couldn’t find a steady job.

Franco’s late-shift drive-thru position turned out to be more than just a financial necessity—it allowed him to practice various accents, including “Brooklynese,” Italian, British, Irish, Russian and Southern.

“I was asked to give Italian lessons to a cute young woman who thought I was from Pisa; of course I couldn’t follow up as I did not speak Italian,” Franco writes, now 37. “The casting director for NYPD Blue liked my British accent, but was put off when I revealed that I was actually just a California boy.”

Aside from accent practice, there were other perks, too, like eating “cheeseburgers that were headed for the trash” and sneaking frozen apple bars, which he would eat in the freezer, “still frozen—great with coffee.” (Not to mention eating french fries straight from the fryer: “I hate to whistle blow, but everyone ate straight from the fry hopper.”)

Franco’s op-ed is published at a time when the iconic chain faces declining profits and nationwide protests over low wages. The chain has announced plans to raise wages to $9.90—by over a dollar—though workers say it’s too little, too late.

The piece will add even more star-powered buzz to McDonald’s, which just announced release of the revamped (and, honestly, kind of sexy) Hamburglar mascot, who’ll be part of a new ad campaign.

“After reading Fast Food Nation, it’s hard for me to trust the grade of the meat,” Franco 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.”

Source