(Cover) - EN Showbiz - James Franco says its boring to do whats expected of him as an actor.

The 32-year-old actor is best known for his role in Oscar-winning film 127 Hours and portraying Harry Osborn in the Spider Man trilogy.

James who got his first break in 1999 after he was cast in a leading role in popular television series Freaks and Geeks - appeared in 20 episodes of the long-running American soap opera General Hospital last year, as Franco, a mysterious artist.

The Hollywood star says he like to surprise people by the roles he takes.

Projects like General Hospital sometimes I view them as prisms, sometimes I view them as mirrors, sometimes they are just fun, but its all a way to kind of break out of, or reflect on, what it is we do in this business, and in life, he explained in an interview with The Sunday Times. I know that kind of answer will strike a lot of people as pretentious, but I think its boring to just do the expected thing and not to embrace new approaches.

James was cast in the title role in James Dean in 2001, a TV biopic, for which he won a Golden Globe. The hunky actor famously immersed himself in the role. He went from being a non-smoker to smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, dyed his dark brown hair blond, and learned to ride a motorcycle as well as play guitar and the bongos.

The star says he wants people to realise he takes his art seriously.

My approach was developed when I did James Dean, he says. I knew people had a lot of expectations and that there was potentially a lot of criticism coming my way. So, to pre-empt that, at least in my own head, I did an enormous amount of research so I could always tell people at least tell myself well, they cant fault me for being lazy or not doing everything I possibly could. I took that approach into the movies I did after that. (C) Cover Media