James Dean and James Franco share a common given name, and Prince James played King James in a biopic that won Franco a Golden Globe in 2002. The two are now linked forever, but fate dove in before the agents ever placed a call. It was a casting choice far bigger than the triumph of comparable facial features and skin tone: Franco was the right person to star in that portrait because, like Dean, he is too complex, too aggressively artistic to be contained by an 8x10 glossy.

(Watch "Icon Redux: James Dean @ Hotel Gansevoort" to get the frontstory for this backstory.)

“He doesn’t really look like James Dean,” says the woman at the cowboy hat store. We’re standing watching Yann Bean make James Dean faces into the store mirror a few yards away, tipping the hat down over his face, furrowing his brows. Tomorrow he’ll try to fill the shoes of one of the most iconic actors in history. Today he’s trying to fill his hat.

“That’s not really the point,” I answer back.

“Oh,” says the woman. She puzzles over it a few seconds longer, then gives up considering what the point could be, giving herself over instead to thinly-veiled admiration.

“Well,” she concludes, “he’s definitely got something anyway.”

As promised! We're very pleased to introduce the first episode of Icon Redux, an original BlackBook video series in partnership with Two Penguins Productions. We're taking classic, iconic personalities at their best (and/or most revealing) and recasting them with contemporary, hot, about-to-break personalities of the very near future. For this installment, young actor Yann Bean re-enacts James Dean's famous 1955 "driving safety" interview on the set of Giant, shortly before his death in a car accident; Yann's version takes place in a suite at New York's Hotel Gansevoort. After the jump, see the original interview, plus tips on what's to come.

UPDATE: It's live, so take a look.

Watch this space for BlackBook's double-secret video project in partnership with the fine folks at Two Penguins Productions. First up: James Dean visits New York's Hotel Gansevoort. For now, we shall say no more -- though you can hit the jump for a penthouse view.