You know James Franco as a movie star—but what you may not know is he’s dabbled in painting, poetry, music, and now, novel writing. The 35-year-old’s second book, Actors Anonymous, (which follows his 2010 collection of short stories, Palo Alto) hits bookshelves today. Excerpted below, the novel is an eclectic story of actors struggling through a celebrity version of the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step program.

I am a good actor, but sometimes I look like a bad actor. And I don’t care.

I used to want to do a bunch of accents and physical impediments with every role. Now I don’t care. Now I want to be as simple as possible, just slip into the world I’m in and be as natural as possible.

When they get older some actors that were once respected become clowns.

It’s like young women: when they have great bodies they don’t want to show them, but when they’re older, and they’re no longer pretty, they do.

Al Pacino was in such high demand he turned down roles for three years before doing Scarface.

In Sunset Boulevard Erich von Stroheim plays Gloria Swanson’s butler and ex-husband. When she screens a film for her new lover, played by William Holden, what they show are shots from Queen Kelly, an actual silent film starring Swanson that von Stroheim directed. It was financed by Joe Kennedy because he was Swanson’s lover at the time, but Swanson had such a bad time with Stroheim she had Kennedy pull the plug before it was finished and it was never released.

Would you rather be Buster Keaton or Peter Fonda? Charlie Chaplin or Leonardo DiCaprio? John Wayne or Phillip Seymour Hoffman? River Phoenix or Mickey Rourke?

Mickey used to be so beautiful. Look at Diner. Yes, he looked like he was falling apart a little even then, but there was no indication of the creature he would become. But he did some things that were pretty amazing, even if they were crazy. He opened a boxing gym, and he became the highest paid four-round fighter in history ($500,000 for a fight in Japan). I heard he had a little soda shop/cigarette stand in Beverly Hills. Bikers would hang out there, also, and under the counter young people could buy beer.

How can you do good work? How can you always do good work?

Excerpted from “Actors Anonymous” by James Franco. ©2013 by James Franco. Published by Little A/New Harvest October 2013. All Rights Reserved.