James Franco might be a hot-shot movie star, but that doesn't mean he's above taking public transportation like the rest of us. He moved to NYC in 2008 and he's enthralled with the metro system!

I’d never really taken the subway before. I love it! The one thing is, I used to listen to a lot of audiobooks in my car in L.A., and now I don’t have that. I go to the Columbia library all the time—I’m enrolled in film school at Tisch and the creative writing program at Columbia. I could be stumbling out of, like, clubs, you know, but I’m not. Everybody used to come up to me in the library. Then I realized I was in the one room people are free to talk in. Now I go to the quiet room.

Nice to hear that James is one celebrity out there just acting like a regular Joe.

I guess it helps that he goes to Columbia where the students there are probably used to celebrity attendance by now. Maggie Gyllenhaal, Casey Affleck, Julia Stiles, Amanda Peet, Matthew Fox, Famke Janssen and Anna Paquin are among famous former students.

Photos by INF.