MUMBAI: James Franco was recently honoured at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. He picked up an award in the ‘Outstanding Performance of the year‘ category.

It may be noted that Franco is an accomplished director, actor, screenwriter, film producer, author, and painter. Beginning his acting career in the late 1990‘s in a short lived TV series called ‘Freaks and Geeks‘, his career was officially launched in 2001 when he played James Dean in Mark Rydell‘s television film, James Dean that earned him a Golden Globe award.

The actor achieved his international fame by playing Harry Osborn in the Spiderman franchise and went on to do films like The Great Raid (2005), Tristan and Isolde and Annapolis (2006).

His best year was 2008 when he acted with Academy Award winner Sean Penn in Milk and Pineapple Express. All this led to 2010 when he played the role of Aron Ralston in Danny Boyle‘s film 127 Hours.

Franco, nominated for an Academy Award for 127 Hours, is going to co-host the 2011 Oscars this month with Anne Hathaway.