“Before he turns to walk away, Franco does something surprising: He winks at me. I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. … Was it ironic—a wink set in quotation marks? Was he making fun of me, and of himself, and of the whole vexed transaction of celebrity journalism? Was he flirting with me, or metaflirting—making a sly reference to all the gay rumors swirling around him, and to our strange homosocial trip to the bathroom together?”

• The James Franco Project