Just because you're a world-famous actor doesn't mean you can't have a side hustle.

James Franco's got a bunch of them. As well as being a movie star he's also a published poet and an artist. And now he's added yet another string to his bow: philosopher.

Yep: James Franco and his buddy Dr Eliot Michaelson (a lecturer at King's College London) have launched a YouTube channel together called "Philosophy Time".

It appears to have been created at the end of last year, but the first four uploads were all posted on Tuesday.

"Join multi-talented actor/director/poet/too much other stuff to list James Franco and the not at all multi-talented Eliot Michaelson as they take you on a tour of contemporary philosophy," reads the channel's description. "With special guests."

The videos are about five minutes each. They mainly consist of academics speaking about a specific topic while James and Eliot throw in a few questions.

We've embedded all the videos below, but the TL;DW version can pretty much be summed up by this gif of James Franco listening intently while deep in serious thought:

Enjoy...

Metaphors.

Imagination.

The ethics of abortion.

Beauty.

4K subscribers and counting so far.