Say what you will about James Franco, you can’t deny he isn’t a prolific artist. With a metric ton of projects that are either ongoing or announced, Franco has enough work to keep him busy for the next half a century. And like any actor-director, he has his favored collaborators, and he’s just announced that Bryan Cranston will play a younger version of himself for their third collaboration together.

Speaking with the South China Morning Post, Franco revealed that Cranston had agreed to star in Franco’s The Masterpiece.

It took eight months for [Why Him?] to go ahead and I asked Bryan to play Sheriff in In Dubious Battle, and then I directed The Masterpiece and he did that too. I asked if he would play himself, and he actually plays a version of himself from the early 2000s, so it’s Bryan Cranston from Malcolm in the Middle. It just speaks to his love of cinema that he supports his fellow artists.

Franco also mentioned that he appreciated Cranston’s ability as a comedic actor and felt like he hadn’t been able to flex those muscles since Breaking Bad.

After Breaking Bad, I think people had forgotten how Bryan is this great comedic actor – as that’s what he did for years and years,” Franco says of the former Malcolm in the Middle star. “When we were filming Why Him?, Bryan said to me, ‘This is the most fun I’ve had in a decade.’ So I found him to be a strong comedic and improvisational partner like Seth, in his own way. He could fly with anything.

He’s absolutely right about Cranston’s comedic chops, and while Why Him? isn’t doing as great as either of them had probably hoped, it’s good to see Cranston having a little fun again. Who knows, maybe The Masterpiece will actually be a masterpiece.

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In a new video to promote their new comedy WHY HIM, co-stars Bryan Cranston and James Franco guess which quotes were either said by a man from Florida or by a tech billionaire. The film, also starring Zoey Deutch, hits theaters on December 25, 2016. Check out the video below, courtesy of Mashable!

Over the holidays, Ned (Bryan Cranston), an overprotective but loving dad and his family visit his daughter at Stanford, where he meets his biggest nightmare: her well-meaning but socially awkward SILICON VALLEY billionaire boyfriend, Laird (James Franco). The straight-laced Ned thinks Laird, who has absolutely no filter, is a wildly inappropriate match for his daughter. The one-sided rivalry-and Ned’s panic level-escalate when he finds himself increasingly out of step in the glamorous high-tech hub, and learns that Laird is about to pop the question.

John Hamburg directs the film from a script he co-wrote with Ian Helfer. WHY HIM is produced by Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps and Ben Stiller’s Red Hour.

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