JAMES FRANCO AND ZACHARY QUINTO TO PLAY EX-LOVERS

Honorary gay James Franco and openly gay Star Trek and American Horror Story star Zachary Quinto will play former lovers in a new film.

On Monday, Variety announced that Quinto had joined the cast of Michael, a film about an anti-gay pastor who used to be gay.

No doubt set to be controversial, it tells the true story of Michael Glatze a high profile gay rights activist who founded a magazine for young gay men.

After a health scare he turned to Christianity and in 2005 completely renounced his homosexuality, becoming a fundamentalist religious crusader against the gay community to which he used to belong.

The story was documented in the 2011 New York Times article My Ex Gay Friend by Benoit Denizet-Lewis, on which the film is based.

Franco will play Glatze and Quinto will take the role of his former boyfriend. The film is produced by Gus Van Sant, who directed Franco in the award-winning Milk.

“This isn’t just a story about an ‘ex-gay,’” director Justin Kelly told Variety. “It’s actually a very relatable story about the power of belief and the desire to belong.”

Franco, who insists he’s straight, has made a career of playing gay roles and using gay themes in his art and film. Quinto came out as gay in 2011 in response to a wave of suicides by bullied gay teens in the US.

Michael is set to start shooting this month.