With Pineapple Express already showing and Milk coming up, it’s no wonder that James Franco turns up in just about every magazine this summer. The September 2008 issue of GQ features a long interview with the 30-year-old actor, beautifully illustrated by Nathaniel Goldberg.

James Franco looks back on his biggest disappointments, most notably Flyboys, Tristan & Isolde, and Annapolis, all of which required a great deal of character preparation. For Flyboys, a story about American World War I pilots, he learned to fly a plane. For Annapolis, he did eight months of boxing training, and for the mythological tale Tristan & Isolde, “I did fucking sword fighting for eight months — what am I ever going to use that for? – and horseback riding,” he tells GQ.

James is also asked about the research he did for Sonny, a Nicolas Cage movie in which he plays a New Orleans prostitute. He explains that he first tried to ask female prostitutes about the job, but they all insisted on touching his penis, probably thinking that undercover cops are also under-endowed. Then he met a male stripper, and somehow ended up sitting in the corner of a hotel room, watching the guy servicing a male client. “It was the first time I ever saw a cock ring,” he tells GQ. But he swears he didn’t touch anyone that night.

Character preparation has its limits. And Sonny ran for only a week.

Read the complete GQ interview