![\"11-22-63\"](\"http:\/\/james-franco.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/11-22-63.jpg\")
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Don\u2019t let Stephen King\u2019s name fool you: The eight-part miniseries 11.22.63 may be adapted from the horror master\u2019s 2011 best-seller, but the story about a down-on-his-luck English teacher tasked with time-traveling to prevent the assassination of President John F. Kennedy isn\u2019t exactly terrifying. <\/p>\n
Not at first, anyway. When Jake (James Franco) leaves the present for the past through a portal in his friend Al\u2019s (Chris Cooper) diner, he arrives in 1960 (not 1958, one of many tweaks from the book approved by King, who serves as an executive producer). Jake\u2019s not yet too concerned with Lee Harvey Oswald (Daniel Webber), who\u2019s still years away from plotting his fateful shots. He has time to settle down, upgrade his wardrobe, and, most important, fall for a young librarian named Sadie (Sarah Gadon) and the optimistic era she represents. \u201cHonestly, this is a love story dressed in the coat of a spy thriller,\u201d exec producer Bridget Carpenter tells EW. \u201cIt\u2019s a man falling in love with not just the woman he meets in the \u201960s, but the \u201960s itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
But as time travelers tend to learn, time flies \u2014 and history doesn\u2019t like to be changed. As Jake prepares for 1963, the scary starts happening \u2014 he dodges threatening obstacles like car crashes and freak fires that keep him from tracking Oswald; plus, he has to make sense of a world in which he doesn\u2019t belong, a feeling Franco says he understands. \u201cIt\u2019s discombobulating,\u201d he says of playing a time-traveler. \u201cJake has to pretend he\u2019s not from the future, so he\u2019s performing. He\u2019s doing what I do for a living.\u201d<\/p>\n
The detailed sets helped make pretending easier for the actor. Production aimed to make the past look alive by finding era-appropriate costumes that showed wear and tear and by using historical footage of the Kennedys in place of casting look-alikes. \u201cI wanted not to feel like I was looking at the pages of a magazine from 1960,\u201d Carpenter explains, \u201cbut to feel like I was surrounded by 1960.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, nailing the look while also untangling storylines (and timelines) made for an intimidating writers\u2019 room. \u201cIt looked like A Beautiful Mind,\u201d Carpenter recalls, laughing. \u201cThere were cards packed on every single bulletin board, and some tucked into corners.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even more packed was Franco\u2019s schedule. He found time to direct an episode, though he originally wanted to do even more, having asked King after reading the novel if he could work on bringing the story to screen. But by then, J.J. Abrams was already on the job as EP. \u201cI said, \u2018Well, there\u2019s no way I\u2019m gonna outbid J.J. Abrams,\u2019 \u201d Franco says, laughing. Luckily, he didn\u2019t totally lose out. \u201cWeeks later, J.J. emailed and said, \u2018I think you\u2019d be great as the lead.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
11.22.63 hits Hulu on Feb. 15.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n