How Old Was James Franco In Freaks And Geeks

Let's be honest. We’ve all done it. You’re watching Freaks and Geeks, the best high school show ever made.

Suddenly, James Franco appears as Daniel Desario, the cool, leather-jacket-wearing burnout. And you think, “Wait. How old is this guy supposed to be?”

The show is set in 1980. Daniel is a high school student, probably a junior or senior. So, about 16 or 17 years old, right?

Wrong. Astronomical levels of wrong.

James Franco was born on April 19, 1978. Freaks and Geeks premiered in 1999. Do the math with me, it’s easy.

1999 minus 1978 equals 21.

That’s right. James Franco was 21 years old during the first season. He was legally old enough to buy a beer and vote for president while pretending to be a kid who skips class to smoke weed in the parking lot.

It gets better. He played a 16-year-old. A 21-year-old playing a 16-year-old. That is a five-year age gap.

In real high school, a 21-year-old is a college senior. They can rent a car. They can get married without parental consent. Not Daniel Desario.

Freaks And Geeks James Franco Tumblr

Daniel was worried about his dad’s reaction to his missing cassette tapes. Meanwhile, James Franco was probably worrying about his car insurance premium.

Now, here is my unpopular opinion. I think it’s totally fine. In fact, it makes the show better.

Because 21 is the perfect age to play a high school burnout. You have the life experience to look properly tired and jaded.

Teenagers are usually too bouncy. A real 16-year-old Daniel would just look like a kid in a costume. But James Franco looked like he had already lived a thousand small-town lives.

He had that world-weary “I’ve seen it all” slump. You can’t fake that slump when you’re actually 16. You have to be at least old enough to have a credit card to pull it off.

Let’s look at the whole cast. Jason Segel (Nick) was 19. Seth Rogen (Ken) was 17. They were all teenagers or just barely legal adults.

James Franco Smile Freaks And Geeks

But Franco was the old man of the group. He was five years older than his on-screen girlfriend, Busy Philipps, who was 19. He was almost a decade older than Linda Cardellini (Lindsay) who was 24—wait, that’s a different story.

Actually, Linda Cardellini was 24 during season one. So she was even older than Franco. The whole freaking cast was an adult playground pretending to be a high school.

It was like a secret, ancient society of 20-somethings meeting in a classroom set. They talked about curfews they never had, and worrying about algebra they already passed.

Honestly, it’s a miracle they didn’t break character and start talking about their apartment leases. “Hey Bill, can you cover my shift at the video store on Tuesday?”

But here’s why it works. High school is a state of mind, not a number. We all felt like we were acting when we were in high school anyway.

James Franco in Freaks and Geeks and now

So having a 21-year-old play a 16-year-old is just an exaggeration of that feeling. We were all faking it. James Franco just faked it with a five-o’clock shadow.

Next time you watch Freaks and Geeks, look at Daniel’s eyes. He’s laughing at a joke only adults get. He’s pretending to care about the school dance when he’s actually calculating his rent.

And that, my friends, is the secret magic of the show. It’s not a documentary about teenagers. It’s a beautiful, hilarious lie told by people who had already survived high school.

So, was James Franco too old? Yes. By every objective standard of reality, yes.

But do we care? No. Because he was the perfect 16-year-old burnout. The world-weary rock star of the smoking circle.

And if you ever meet a 16-year-old who looks that cool, run. They are almost certainly a 22-year-old actor in a trench coat.