From show creators David Simon and George Pelecanos, the HBO series The Deuce, named after the local slang for New York’s 42nd Street, chronicles the time when the sex industry went from back alleys to a billion dollar business. As twin brothers Vincent (James Franco) and Frankie Martino (also James Franco) navigate their way through Times Square in 1971, the earliest pioneers of the flesh trade, including pornographers, hookers, pimps and adult bookstore owners, have to dodge the law while figuring out how to make the most of their situation.

During this 1-on-1 interview with Collider, actor/executive producer/director James Franco talked about how he came to be working with David Simon, why he’s all in on The Deuce, wanting to create historical accuracy, his experience also directing episodes of the series, the three-season plan, and why the different stages of learning he’s had in his career have all been so important.

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Image via HBO

Collider: First, I have to tell you that I absolutely loved 11.22.63, from start to finish. Terrific work on that series! I thought it was such a great show!

JAMES FRANCO: Thank you! Me too! That was my first foray into television. I actually signed on to both projects at the same time. I had met with David Simon three years ago and he was talking about a different project that I ultimately couldn’t do because of scheduling, but I’m the biggest David Simon fan. I think The Wire is the greatest television show ever made. And so, I said, “Is there anything else we can do together, in the future? Have you got anything in the pipeline?” He said, “Well, I’ve got this thing about 42nd Street and the dawn of pornography.” So, I kept that in the back of my mind. And then, I read this book, called Difficult Men, which is about the showrunners of this Golden Age of television, with all of the Davids – David Chase, David Milch and David Simon – and Vince Gilligan, and all of those people. It really excited me. It really broke down how this new revolution in television is changing entertainment, where you have fewer episodes, and they’re on cable networks or streaming networks, so you can show more. Also, instead of 20-plus episodes, you’ve got 8, 10 or 12 episodes, so the writers can actually arc a story across a whole season or a whole series. As an actor or as a director, you can be involved in these stories that go so much more in-depth and go so many more places. Whereas as a director or actor in film, it’s more limited. Jack Nicholson said, “Give me a couple good scenes and three good lines, and I’m happy.” But in television, you get to explore so much, and that turned me on. All of the adult dramatic content of the American movies of the ‘70s, which are my favorite movies, are moving towards television. That’s where there’s an audience for it and that’s where they’re able to tell those stories now. For all of those reasons, I suddenly became open to doing television. J.J. Abrams contacted me, and then I contacted David Simon and was like, “How do we make this happen?”

You’re starring in The Deuce, playing twins, executive producing and directing episodes, so you’re all in.

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Image via Paul Schiraldi/HBO

FRANCO: I’m all in, and it’s actually a dream come true. My favorite movies are the [Martin] Scorsese films of New York in the ‘70s – Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull – and the [Sidney] Lumet movies – Dog Day Afternoon and Serpico – and movies like The French Connection. I used those movies as my schooling, when I was a young actor. Now, I get to be a part of that whole world, but not only that, enter the world through the pen and eyes of people like David Simon, George Pelecanos and Richard Price, who are the best at what they do. Also, add to all of that, a very realistic approach, especially with David, who comes from journalism. He’s very into creating historical accuracy. It just gives it one more interesting edge.

It’s easy to see how this material could have been handled very differently, in the hands of someone other than David Simon.

FRANCO: Exactly, and that is not unconnected. As a director on a David Simon show, you get a lot of freedom. He has no pretensions of being a director. He doesn’t want to direct, so he gives his directors a lot of latitude, but there is a house style. I guess you could describe it more as realistic, and not just in the aesthetic. By doing that, we can approach the subject matter in a very blunt and transparent way. We can show more because we’re showing how it was rather than showing things for gratuitous reasons. Life is messy and there are many different levels to it. David Simon is part of this fairly recent phenomenon of killing off your main characters. He’s one of the biggest proponents or offenders of that. He kills his darlings, for sure.

David Simon has a three-season plan for this series. Is that something you’re game for?

FRANCO: Of course! I had to be, signing on. One of the interesting things about this show is that it’s a hybrid between a limited series and a regular series. There are only eight episodes a season, and if we go, which it looks like we will, there will only be three seasons. It gives it this perfectly encapsulated, very concise, economical power punch feeling to it. From the beginning, the plan was to cover 14 years. The first season is ‘71-‘72, and the dawn of pornography. The second season is ‘77, ‘78 and ‘79, or somewhere in there. And then, the third season will be ‘84-‘85 when everything imploded and the old 42nd Street was shut down by Mayor Koch. I think if we pull it off, it will be a really nice encapsulation of a time and a place.

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Image via Paul Schiraldi/HBO

There are so many interesting characters on this show that I feel like I would love to learn more about any one of them.

FRANCO: That is one of the secrets of a great David Simon/George Pelecanos show. In fact, the way The Wire really came about – and this is what I’ve gleaned from sitting on set with David, and hearing about all the stories and asking about all the stories because I’m a huge fan – was that David loved Richard Price’s book, Clockers, which chronicled the crack epidemic. One of the big, ground-breaking structural devices of that book was that he didn’t just cover it through the eyes of the police force, and he didn’t just cover it through the eyes of a young dealer or user. He had both, and he switched between both. You could see that that was the kernel of The Wire. In fact, David and George weren’t really that interested in porn. When they heard about the guy that my character, Vincent, is based on, they were like, “Yeah, we don’t know if we want to do a porn show, but let’s hear what he has to say.” David’s porn is political corruption. That’s what really gets him off. But I had a feeling, just from talking to him in the beginning, that this show was actually going to push David to do everything that he does best and everything that he did so well on The Wire, where you get all of these characters from different walks of life and different economic levels, doing different things, whether they’re politicians, mobsters, bar owners, prostitutes or pimps. It’s all woven together, in a way that maybe only David Simon and Charles Dickens can do.

Do you feel like your previous directing experience was crucial to you doing it on The Deuce?

FRANCO: Yeah. I’m so lucky. I’m such a fortunate guy. I’ve had different stages of learning, in my career. I started as an actor and acted for about eight or so years. Then, I went back to school, and went to NYU film school. When I got out of NYU, I was making my own very literary, artistic indies. That was another stage of learning. And then, I realized, “You know what? I’ve been doing all of these indies on my own. I’ve been out there without a heavy hand about me.” I thought that was the ideal, at the time, but after doing a number of those, I thought, “You know what? I wanna work with some producers that are better than I am and that are more experienced than I am.” And so, I got really lucky. J.J. Abrams called me and I met David Simon, and I got to direct on both of those projects. I really got to learn how to be responsible to a project that was greater than just my creative ideas. When you work on a series, as a director, it’s like picking up the baton and passing it. You have to take the characters from where they left off in the last episode, make sense of where they were, and then guide them to the end and make sure that you’re passing off coherent characters to the next person, and that they fall in line with the greater thing. Within that, you can still be creative. Working in that space taught me so much. Fortunately, I got to work with two of the best in the business. Best ever, I guess you could say. So, I learned so much, as a director.

The Deuce airs on Sunday nights on HBO.

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Image via Paul Schiraldi/HBO