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James Franco says he was willing to do just about anything to be a part of Milk, for which he has received his first Independent Spirit Award nomination. When he first got wind of the project, he emailed director Gus Van Sant. "I said, 'I'll play the pool cleaner or whatever,'" Franco remembers. "And he's really mellow and low-key, even in his emails, and he just wrote back, 'Yeah, cool, maybe we'll meet when you're in L.A.' We met and talked, and thank God he didn't give me the pool cleaner role. He let me play a pretty good role." In Van Sant's biopic, Franco portrays Scott Smith, longtime love of Harvey Milk (Sean Penn), the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California. The film depicts Milk's rise to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, his caring yet complicated relationship with Smith,...