Age: 32
Occupation: Renaissance man
Previous TIME 100 appearances: 0
He's a soap actor, Oscar host, writer, conceptual artist, doctoral candidate and, oh yeah — movie star. James Franco seems to be trying to squeeze as many titles onto his resume as possible, and in the meantime has fashioned himself into a sort of high-culture high-wire act: How many plates can he keep spinning at once and how high off the ground? So far, the sky's the limit.