Baudrillardist

The strong financial earning years for successful (but not super successful actors) is really short lived compared to other highly successful people in other fields. The tendency is to think of anyone with a recognizable name in showbusiness as having more money than Croesus, but there are a few things to consider: One, large gaps in employment and two, the money swiped off the top of their earnings. Actors do splashy things to keep themselves in the spotlight but they're often not getting paid much for that. They also sometimes do pet projects that make them little money or a cool cameo for a movie or tv that sets the web ablaze for little money. The other things is, the hand in their wallet -- agents, money managers, personal managers, lawyers, pr people, taxes. The reality is that they only bring in 30-40% of what they gross. I am not saying anyone should cry for actors who make 5 million a year, but understand that translates into 2 million after they're pillaged by business people. Compare a 35 year old actor to a 35 year old junior partner at a law firm and it is not hard to see which one is on the way up and one is on the way down, even if at this point they are basically making the same amount after taxes. At 50, most actors are pretty much done, guest-spotting and reality-showing or even soaping back to their roots when they were first trying to break in. Whereas the junior, now senior partner at a law firm, has increased their earning power and can maintain this level of earnings for at least another 15 maybe 20 years, year in year out. No fame and no glamour and public adulation attached -- but then, no years of not getting a pilot picked up and doing lame straight-to-video movies, either. The life of the aging actor is not only fiscally depressing for all those involved (unless you're an outlier, Jack Nicholson say), it's also often empty as well. Projects that are offered really begin to suck any prior pride or vanity from earlier in their career -- this downward swing and attendant unraveling becomes tabloid fodder for the masses. But they can eke out a million here and there, especially if XY fading celeb is willing to parody oneself based on what the masses remember about the one or two hits they may have had. Such a being has morphed into walking, repackaged garbage.

Money managers treat actors like children and for good reason -- actors get used to a style of life they will, in all great probability, not be able to sustain as they move into middle age. Obviously, it is worse for actresses: the vast majority of female screen thesps need to get out of Hollywood by the time they reach 30. Generally, it seems actresses are much savvier than are male actors about the ticking bomb that is their acting career -- perhaps because this ticking coincides with their time-to-start-a-family biological time clock that men lack. Worth noting too: Franco is not a major star (no way an island buying Nicholoas Cage) and it seems he simply is following a career path that is natural to him, the sort of thing that Ethan Hawke might have done 10 years ago (sans Uma and the kids). While there is most likely an ego-trip component to Franco's decision to go to Yale (adding prestige to rank fame), it doesn't seem to be borne out of complete frivolousness but of internal motivation to work on a project, just like anyone else might have. I think if he wanted to prestige of the Yale name alone, why not go to Yale drama school (tied into some other program at Yale, so as to inject interdisciplinary flair) for some histrionic copulation?

No, I actually never fell asleep during a lecture because I cared about what was being discussed and had a sincere desire to learn.

I doubt Franco went through any sort of normal application process, and he has enough money to where if he really wanted to embark on the via contemplativa, he could go buy an island, write, and then create a powerhouse publishing firm to disseminate his foundation shattering thoughts to the rest of the world.

But he wants to go to Yale.

This sounds more like he is currently bored with acting, and gravitated towards a "prestigious" school for some intellectual fornication, since that is probably the furthest thing from his everyday existence, or the most radically different thing a person in his situation could do. Chicks? All the time. Parties? All the time. Fast Cars? All the time. Knowledge? Never. Just following his curiosity--nothing wrong with that--but do you really need to burn $$$ at Yale and Columbia to learn?

Yale should have said no thanks, but I imagine if you look at the population who "gets in" simply on renown and connections, they would have to say that a lot more than they do already :/

No, I actually never fell asleep during a lecture because I cared about what was being discussed and had a sincere desire to learn.

I doubt Franco went through any sort of normal application process, and he has enough money to where if he really wanted to embark on the via contemplativa, he could go buy an island, write, and then create a powerhouse publishing firm to disseminate his foundation shattering thoughts to the rest of the world.

But he wants to go to Yale.

This sounds more like he is currently bored with acting, and gravitated towards a "prestigious" school for some intellectual fornication, since that is probably the furthest thing from his everyday existence, or the most radically different thing a person in his situation could do. Chicks? All the time. Parties? All the time. Fast Cars? All the time. Knowledge? Never. Just following his curiosity--nothing wrong with that--but do you really need to burn $$$ at Yale and Columbia to learn?

Yale should have said no thanks, but I imagine if you look at the population who "gets in" simply on renown and connections, they would have to say that a lot more than they do already :/