They're both single, talented, rich and good looking - but don't go getting any ideas that James Franco and Lana Del Rey might be anything more than good friends.

The actor has insisted in a new interview that he hasn't been romancing the queen of melancholic pop - although he has confessed that he'd "have sex with her music".

Asked about her on The Howard Stern Show, Franco replied: "No, she's a friend of mine...We're friends."

And pushed to admit that they had hooked up, he answered: "No, on my life."

"I'll tell you why, maybe it's a boring answer," he explained. "There's a weird thing with creative types. Sometimes I love a person's work and, like, I'm just so enamored with that and their persona in their work.

"But outside of that, it's like, our dynamic is we're just kind of friends, we get along so well. But all this sexual attraction is for the person and the work."

Asked what he and LDR did together, he let slip: "We go to Coney Island and hang out. I would have sex with her music."