The entertainment Swiss Army Knife known as James Franco is adding yet another corkscrew to his arsenal: he’s about to debut on Nick at Nite’s nightly soap opera ‘Hollywood Heights.’

It’s hard for Tinseltown insiders to wrap their heads around the fact that the same guy who turned in an Oscar-nominated performance in ’127 Hours’ spends his free time in more decidedly low-brow fare like the daytime soap ‘General Hospital.’ (That’s when he’s not taking or teaching college classes, which he pretty much always is.)

But Zap2It reports Franco apparently likes TV enough that he’s now signed on for several episodes of ‘Hollywood Heights,’ which focuses on an 18-year-old girl who, after high graduation, heads to Hollywood to seek fame and the love of her rock idol. Franco will play Osborne “Oz” Silver, described as “an eccentric movie mogul who lives life to the fullest, often outrageously.”

Aside from a brief 2001 appearance on ‘The X-Files’ and his made-for-TV movie ‘James Dean’ the same year, it’ll be the actor’s first prime-time gig since he starred in the short-lived but cult-beloved series ‘Freaks and Geeks’ more than a decade ago.

‘Hollywood Heights’ premieres Friday, June 29, 9 p.m. on Nick at Nite. Take a look at Franco in action below.

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