James Franco is best known for his roles in the feature films 'Spider-man,' 'Milk' and 'Pineapple Express,' so everyone was surprised when the Golden Globe winner announced he was joining the cast of "General Hospital" for a short-term story.

Franco's first appearance on the daytime drama is today. He will be playing a character named ... what else? Franco.

"There is no first name or last name. It is just Franco," he explains. "He is an artist. I think he works in various mediums. He spray paints, he tags and he arranges installations based on murder scenes. He is obsessed with death. He actually goes to real murder scenes to find inspiration."

Franco -- the character, not the actor -- is also obsessed with mobster Jason Morgan (Steve Burton).

"He has a fascination with Jason," Steve says. "He thinks they are the same because of Jason's job. They have a head-to-head confrontation. It becomes a mental game."

In earlier interviews, Franco has said that he never watched soaps, but that it was his idea to try the genre, not the other way around.

"I like the intensity of soaps," he says now that he is actually on the job. "The characters stay around for so long and there are so many characters, so there are all these storylines. I love the serial nature of soaps. It is fascinating to me. There is a side of me that loves to study genealogies of anything, and soaps really provide a wealth of that kind of intricacy, so I love that."

"General Hospital" airs weekdays on ABC.

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