James Franco to Star as U.S. Navy Sailor Who Fathers Child in Italy in Gritty Drama ‘Hey Joe’ (EXCLUSIVE)
variety.comNick Vivarelli International Correspondent James Franco will play a U.S. Navy sailor stationed in post-World War II Naples, where he fathers a child, in gritty Italian drama “Hey Joe.” Directed by Claudio Giovannesi (“Gomorrah” TV series, “Piranhas”), the film is now shooting in the southern port city.
Franco, who has recently been taking roles outside the U.S. following a now-settled 2019 lawsuit alleging that he sexually exploited young women who took his acting class, will be speaking both English and Italian to play the lead in “Hey Joe,” said producer Carlo Degli Esposti, head of Italy’s prominent Palomar shingle.
Degli Esposti added that Palomar got a waiver from SAG-AFTRA for Franco to work on the film “since we are an indie production.” In “Hey Joe,” Franco plays Dean Barry, an American sailor who in 1944, at age 23, disembarks in Naples which has been destroyed by bombing.
He falls in love with a young, very poor, local woman named Lucia. A couple of years later, Dean is forced to leave Lucia, alone and pregnant, to go back to New Jersey.
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