What do we really know about James Franco? The actor, director, lecturer, author, artist, musician and scriptwriter is something of a mystery. For one, we know that he does a lot of things. We know that he has a sustained interest in the porn scene. We also know that, although he’s straight, most of the stories he chooses to tell are LGBTQ-focused. “I’m gay in my art and straight in my life,” Franco tried to explain last year. “I’m also gay in my life up to the point of intercourse, and then you could say I’m straight. So I guess it depends on how you define gay. If it means whom you have sex with, I guess I’m straight.”

The latest of these gay creative ventures is The Deuce. The TV drama, written by The Wire’s David Simon, sees Franco take on the roles of real-life mobster twins Frankie and Vincent Martino. Like last year’s King Cobra, the plot will be focused on the porn industry’s underbelly – with The Deuce looking specifically at the New York scene in the 70s and 80s. 

Franco will, obviously, be playing both Frankie and Vincent Martino, with Maggie Gyllenhaal taking a role as entrepreneurial prostitute-turned-porn-star “Candy”. Both characters have been teased in two new images from the show, obtained exclusively by Entertainment Weekly (see Franco above, and Gyllenhaal below).

“The stereotypes and ideas we have about prostitutes and people who work in porn are too vague,” Gyllenhaal told EW. “I hope that this show, in a way, shines a bright enough light on a group of people who haven’t had one shone on them.”

The Deuce is set to premiere this summer on HBO.