James Franco says jealousy got him into acting.

The 'Spring Breakers' star decided to join his high school's drama department when the girl he was dating was asked to act alongside another student who had crafted and was starring in a romantic one-act.

He said: "I started acting my senior year in high school. I had loved movies since as long as I can remember. Then finally my senior year, I started acting. And I had a girlfriend in the drama program, and she had been asked to do a one-act by this guy. And he had written this one-act and was directing and starring in it.

"It was this romantic piece, and they were gonna make out in it. And I got really jealous, and I begged her not to do it. But she did it anyway, as she should have. I realise in hindsight that I was jealous probably more because he had constructed this whole thing and he'd written it and directed it and was acting in it - it was, like, all the things that I wanted to do. And so as my revenge, I decided that I would join the drama class."

After finding his new passion, the 39-year-old actor decided to drop out of school to pursue his career fully.

He added to W magazine: "I got the leads in the last two plays that year. Then I hadn't applied to any drama schools 'cause I was too late, and so I wasn't in the theater program at UCLA. But I was in L.A., and there was, like, a guy in my dorm that was on the show Cybill, with Cybill Shepherd.

"It was just all around me, and I was like, 'Well, I, I need to do this now.' So I dropped out of school. My parents wouldn't support me anymore. So I worked at McDonald's for two or three months ... Then I got a Pizza Hut commercial, and then not long after that I did Freaks and Geeks. So it all worked out."