Apr 2001
In this issue:
Features
Penn state
The most charismatic, erudite and intense actor in Hollywood is coming off the back of Oscar success for Milk. But it’s his overall life that remains his greatest achievement
Issue: Mar, 2009
One afternoon in January, Sean Penn answers the door of his Bay Area home, shoeless, in jeans and a grey thermal undershirt, his hair sort of crazily mussed, looking as if he’s just woken up. It’s a couple of minutes past noon. He does not look younger than his 48 years; his forehead is baroquely creased, his long face haggard, his hair grey-streaked, and he exudes a beer-and-cigarette musk particular to the morning after a rough night.
All of which sounds like the opposite of a compliment, but Penn has aged into exactly the type of guy he’s always seemed to want to be. When he was younger, not yet anointed the greatest actor of his generation, Penn had a habit of befriending older men he’d long idolised (Jack Nicholson, Charles Bukowski, Dennis Hopper, Hunter S Thompson) who had, aside from their obvious talents, seemed to figure out a way of living that was also an integral extension of their art. Penn has lived hard himself – fistfights, benders, jail, Madonna, public references to a sitting president’s “soiled and blood-stained underwear”. “I’m not an alcoholic,” he told The New York Times Magazine in 1998. “I’m just a big drinker, and there’s a difference.”
Penn, of course, gives as good as he gets. At one point in our interview, railing about the lack of commitment displayed by some of his acting peers, he says, “People are spending too much time modelling for some f**king clothing company instead of acting, and I resent it.
“You see wonderfully talented actors everywhere, which almost makes it sadder,” Penn says wearily, lighting another American Spirit. “It’s not about what kind of movies they make. I don’t care if they make love stories – there are great love stories. Just let me know you mean it. I want to know you’re trying to write the Great American Novel every time. Fail all you want. But f**king try.”
NOX: Congratulations on the ongoing success of Milk. When Gus Van Sant first approached you about this film, were you aware of Harvey Milk and his career?
Sean Penn: I was graduating high school in California the year Harvey Milk was killed, so I was certainly aware of it.
it was national news, anyway. I didn’t know anything more than this openly gay politician was murdered alongside the mayor of San Francisco.
NOX: Josh Brolin, your Milk co-star, made a speech about you the other night at the New York Film Critics Circle awards. Did you guys have an immediate rapport?
SP: We’d spent some drinking time together before we knew we were going to make this movie. He just cracks me the f**k up. And, yeah, we’re both California surfers, we both race cars, we ride horses, our dads knew each other and worked together. I think I might have even met him once, as a kid. I remember going out to James Brolin’s house with my dad. Josh is much younger than I am, though.
NOX: Your kids are teenagers themselves now. Have they watched many of your films?
SP: They’ve hardly seen any of them. By their design. It weirds them out. They’ve seen a few. They both came to the Milk premiere. I don’t think either one of them has seen more than four movies that I’ve been in. Of my wife’s movies, maybe a few more than that.
NOX: So was it almost a kind of creative rivalry… although we hesitate to use the word?
SP: No, it would be the opposite of a rivalry. It would be more of a brotherhood. He’s on your team, and he just beat six tackles – now do him a favour and beat seven. There’s something about that that just got the juices flowing.
NOX: Have you learned things about directing from directors you’ve worked with?
SP: Clint (Eastwood) is a very unusual case. The only thing I learned from him on Mystic River was the value of a sense of calm and quiet on a set. How he makes a movie is a mystery to me. I remember checking into a hotel in Boston to start on the very first day of shooting. Nine weeks later from that day, the movie was finished – including the score that he wrote and recorded! This year, two major pictures, and acting in one of them? I don’t know how he does it.
NOX: It’s like a supreme level of confidence.
SP: That plays a big part, yeah. I don’t know what the rest is. He’ll say, “You want to rehearse this scene?” So you get done with your first rehearsal, and he says, “I’m OK. Want to move on?” He’s had the camera rolling – he shot it. I think the most takes I ever did on Clint’s movie was three, and that was rare. A lot of one-takes.
NOX: How about the famous scene in Mystic River, where your character is being held down by that huge group of police officers as he tries to get to his daughter’s body?
SP: This is my favourite story of his guidance. In the script, it was written that six guys are stopping me. I thought maybe two of them could take me. But if it’s only six of them, someone might get hurt if I really let myself go, so I don’t know what to do. I don’t want a really fake fight, and I don’t want to hurt anybody. Clint said, “I’ll figure it out,” and that’s all he said. When I came back to the set, he had about 15 guys jump on me, and I was locked down – I was literally able to try to head-butt people, I was able to try to bite people, I was able to try to kick them. I didn’t have to hold back at all, and it freed me to do anything. This is Clint thinking.
For a full version of this article, see NOX32.
