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Sean Justin Penn (born August 17, 1960) is an Academy Award-winning American film actor and director, known for playing intense and unsympathetic characters. He was awarded an Oscar for Best Actor for his performance in Mystic River. Penn has also been nominated for three other Academy Awards in recognition of his roles in I Am Sam, Sweet and Lowdown and Dead Man Walking. In 2004, Penn was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He is also well-known for his political activism. Described by The New York Times as "both a human tempest and an actor of sizable gifts", Sean Penn is at least as well-known for his brief but highly publicized marriage to pop phenomenon Madonna and his battles with the entertainment press as for his impressive but relatively modest body of work as an actor. The son of blacklisted actor-turned director Leo Penn and his actress wife Eileen Ryan, this intense volatile actor refuses to prostitute his talent, preferring to work on the fringes of the industry for far less money than he could command on projects that his name often helps realize. Having received his initial training on the stage, Penn made his film debut providing strong support as Timothy Hutton's more level-headed roommate in "Taps" (1981), a sleeper drama about cadets who take over their military academy. America took notice with his hilarious yet finely nuanced portrayal of the perpetually stoned surfer Jeff Spicoli in Amy Heckerling's superior teen comedy, "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" (1982). While only in a supporting role, Penn received top billing and emerged as a future star. Penn was born in Los Angeles County, California, the son of Leo Penn, an actor and director, and Eileen Ryan (née Annucci), an actress. He has one living brother, musician Michael Penn. Another brother, actor Chris Penn, died in 2006. His paternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Lithuania and Russia, descended from Rabbis. Penn's mother is a Roman Catholic of Italian and Irish descent. According to Penn's mother, Leo Penn had distant Spanish ancestry, as the family's surname was originally "Piñón". Penn was raised in a secular home and is an Agnostic. He quickly established himself as one of Hollywood's finest actors, easily shifting genres while alternating between starring and character roles. He garnered excellent reviews as Mick O'Brien in "Bad Boys" (1983), a tough urban melodrama about life inside a juvenile prison, but was equally at home in his first romantic lead opposite Elizabeth McGovern in the WWII-era romance "Racing With the Moon" (1984). "At Close Range" (1986) became a bit of a family affair as Penn acted alongside his mother Eileen Ryan (playing his onscreen grandmother) and real-life brother Chris. He also managed to hold his own opposite the scenery-chewing Christopher Walken as his criminal father. He co-starred with his then-wife Madonna in perhaps his worst film to date, "Shanghai Surprise" (1986), a dull adventure set in 1937 China, but fared better opposite Robert Duvall in "Colors" (1988), a solid police drama directed by reformed bad boy Dennis Hopper. Duvall, according to Rolling Stone (April 4, 1996), told his co-star: "I took this part because I get to kick your ass and throw you against a locker. Everybody in America wants to kick your ass ... I'm gonna be a hero." Penn, who had made his Broadway debut in "Heartland" (1981) before his screen career took off, returned to the New York stage in "The Slab Boys" (1983) and collaborated for the first time with playwright David Rabe on the Los Angeles production of "Hurlyburly" in 1988. He gave one of his strongest screen performances the next year as a possibly psychotic American officer who instigates and participates in the rape and murder of a Vietnamese girl in Brian De Palma's "Casualties of War" (1989), scripted by Rabe. "State of Grace" (1990), his last acting appearance for three years, cast him as an undercover cop who infiltrates his old Irish mob and paired him for the first time with future-wife Robin Wright, whose artistic sensibilities mirror his own, making her one of Hollywood's best-kept secrets. His obsession with acting having worn off, he "retired" to concentrate on writing and directing and made an impressive debut at the helm of "The Indian Runner" (1991), a moving character study (inspired by a Bruce Springsteen song) featuring David Morse and Viggo Mortensen as two brothers on opposite sides of the law. Penn appeared in a 1974 episode of Little House on the Prairie as a then blonde-haired extra because his dad, Leo Penn, directed some of the episodes. Penn launched his career with the 1981 film Taps, followed a year later with the comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High in the role of Jeff Spicoli and has since starred in over forty movies. In 1985, Penn gave a memorable performance in the role of Andrew Daulton Lee in The Falcon and the Snowman. Lee was a former drug dealer by trade, convicted of espionage for the Soviet Union and was originally sentenced to life in prison. Lee was paroled in 1998. According to an April 8, 2005, interview in The Guardian, Penn later hired Lee as his personal assistant, partly because he wanted to reward Lee for allowing him to play Lee in the film, and also because he was a firm believer in rehabilitation and thought Andrew Lee should be reintegrated into society now that he is a free man again. Family responsibilities and the desire to finance another movie prompted Penn to return to the screen with a harrowing performance as a coke-crazed criminal lawyer in De Palma's "Carlito's Way" (1993). With salary in hand, he turned his attentions to his second directorial effort, "The Crossing Guard", featuring one of Jack Nicholson's best performances in years as a man destroyed by the death of his young daughter at the hands of a drunk driver (David Morse). Later that year, Penn delivered with what is arguably one of his best screen performances (and earned a Best Actor Academy Award nomination) as a Louisiana death row inmate counseled by a nun (Susan Sarandon) in Tim Robbins' bleak but balanced examination of capital punishment. "Dead Man Walking" (1995). Despite protestations of not wanting to act, he remained busy with three major releases in 1997 alone, copping the Best Actor Prize at that year's Cannes Film Festival for his turn as a mentally unstable loser who seeks out his former wife after ten years in Nick Cassavetes' "She's So Lovely". Penn, whose personal connection to the project scripted by the director's late father John predated his "retirement", was planning to helm it himself at one point until the younger Cassavetes stepped in, freeing him to star opposite his real-life wife (now credited as Robin Wright Penn) and John Travolta. Penn, who served as executive producer, delivered an emotionally pure portrait of a man tortured by love. He followed with David Fincher's psychological thriller "The Game", presenting his cold-hearted billionaire brother (Michael Douglas) an unusual birthday present, which ignited a roller-coaster ride to oblivion, and then played a drifter whose paranoia increases when he becomes stranded in a desert town in Oliver Stone's "U-Turn". Penn's artistic integrity has enabled him to hang onto the best-of-his-generation tag garnered early in his career. A desire to work with Terrence Malick led him to tell the director, "You give me a dollar and point the way," and eventually he headlined Malick's adaptation of "The Thin Red Line" (1998) for a payday rumored to be in the neighborhood of $150,000, but then the movies he wants to make will not make him rich. Opening at the same time as Malick's WWII saga was the film version of "Hurlyburly", an ensemble piece dominated by Penn's powerhouse performance as Eddie, a Hollywood agent permanently wired on coke and grass. Despite rumblings from the set that Penn didn't want to be there, the actor gave a winning performance as the brash, mostly unlikable jazz guitarist at the center of Woody Allen's "Sweet and Lowdown" (1999), a role that garnered his second Academy Award nomination as Best Actor. In order to finance his writing and directing efforts, he has remained active before the cameras with roles in Phillip Haas' adaptation of Somerset Maugham's "Up in the Villa" (2000), Julian Schnabel's art-house rendering of Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas "Before Night Falls" (2000) and Kathryn Bigelow's "The Weight of Water" (2001; released in the USA in 2002). He returned to the director's chair with "The Pledge" (2001), a thriller starring Jack Nicholson that earned respectful reviews. Later that year, after undertaking a rare TV role on the hit NBC sitcom "Friends", Penn garnered acclaim and a third Best Actor Academy Award nomination for his admirable work as a mentally-challenged man seeking custody of his young daughter (Dakota Fanning) in "I Am Sam". The actor's full ferocity was deftly tapped by Clint Eastwood, who directed Penn in "Mystic River" (2003), in which Penn played Jimmy Markum, a man consumed with rage when his daughter is murdered and his childhood friends (Kevin Bacon and Tim Robbins) become involved in the homicide investigation. On the heels of that performance, he delivered another virtuouso turn in "21 Grams" (2003) as a dying professor who receives a heart transplant that consumes him with guilt. Both roles resulted in a banner year for Penn, who received the Golden Globe as Best Actor in a Drama (Eastwood accepted for the notoriously publicity-avoiding actor) for "Mystic River," and subsequently the Academy Award for Best Actor, where the notoriously private and gala-shy star made an appearance to collect his trophy. Remarkably, Penn topped himself yet again with "The Assassination of Richard Nixon" (2004), in which he played Sam Bicke, an emotionally and socially disconnected failed furniture salesman in 1974 who tenuosu grip on sanity slowly slips away when, fancying himself the last honest man in America, he plots to highjack an airliner and crash it into the Nixon White House. Penn started 2005 providing the watercooler moment at the Academy Awards when, before presenting an award, he made a well-intentioned but humorless response to host Chris Rock's monlogue digs at actor Jude Law. The actor then starred in the Sydney Pollack-directed thriller "The Interpreter" as a federal agent assigned to protect an African-born U.N. translator (Nicole Kidman) who alleges that she has overheard a death threat against an African head of state, spoken in a rare dialect few people other than she can understand, but he soon suspects there may be something more sinister behind her story. In 1991, Penn made his directorial debut with The Indian Runner, a film based on Bruce Springsteen's song "Highway Patrolman" from the Nebraska album. He also directed music videos, such as: Shania Twain's "Dance with the One That Brought You" in 1993 and Peter Gabriel's "The Barry Williams Show" in 2002. He also appeared on an episode of Viva La Bam in 2004 with his son Hopper. He has since directed three more films: The Crossing Guard in 1995, The Pledge in 2001, and the critically acclaimed Into the Wild in 2007. Penn is currently set to star in Gus Van Sant's bio-pic Milk. Penn will play real life gay rights icon Harvey Milk. The film is scheduled to start filming in January 2008. Penn was supposedly engaged to actress Elizabeth McGovern, his co-star in 1984's Racing with the Moon, after which he dated Susan Sarandon. Penn's personal life began to attract media attention when he married pop star Madonna in 1985. The relationship was marred by violent outbursts against the press, including one incident for which he was arrested for beating a photographer. Madonna dedicated her third studio album, True Blue to Penn, referring to him in the liner notes as "the coolest guy in the universe". Later in the marriage, Penn was charged with felony domestic assault, a charge for which he pleaded to a misdemeanor. Penn and Madonna divorced in 1989. He soon began a relationship with Robin Wright, and their first child, Dylan Frances, was born in 1991. Their second child, Hopper Jack, was born in 1993. Penn and Wright married in 1996 and lived in Ross, California. On December 27, 2007, the couple's representative announced that the Penns were divorcing. However, on April 9, 2008, it was announced that the couple had ended their divorce proceedings. During a separation from Wright in the mid 1990s, Penn dated singer and songwriter Jewel Kilcher. He was also the director of the original video for Kilcher's hit song "You Were Meant For Me". He is extremely good friends with Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich and he introduced the band at their MTV Icon Induction Ceremony in 2003. On April 10, 2003, Penn's 1987 Buick Grand National was stolen in Berkeley, California, with two firearms in the trunk. Sean also has a 1968 Chevrolet El Camino. Along with Johnny Depp and Mick Hucknall, Penn is a part-owner of the Parisian restaurant-bar Man Ray. His younger brother, Chris, famous for playing Nice Guy Eddie in Reservoir Dogs, died from an enlarged heart (drug induced) in his Santa Monica condominium on January 24, 2006. On October 18, 2002, Penn placed a US$56,000 advertisement in the Washington Post asking President George W. Bush to end a cycle of violence. It was written as an open letter and referred to the planned attack on Iraq and the War on Terror. In the letter, Penn also criticized the Bush administration for its "deconstruction of civil liberties" and its "simplistic and inflammatory view of good and evil." Penn visited Iraq briefly in December 2002. This advertisement was cited as a primary reason for the development of his friendship with Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. Hugo Chávez has also used and read aloud an open letter Sean Penn wrote to President Bush in one of his recent televised speeches. The letter condemned the Iraq War, called for President Bush to be impeached, and also called President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "villainously and criminally obscene people". Chavez also said in the same televised speech "Welcome to Venezuela, Mr. Penn. What drives him is consciousness, the search for new paths," and also "He's one of the greatest opponents of the Iraq invasion." On August, 2007, Penn met with Hugo Chávez in Caracas for two hours. Chávez praised his bravery in urging Americans to impeach President Bush. Chávez also said Penn "made great films" and that he was "well-informed". Penn also visited a new film studio on the outskirts of Caracas, though he did not speak publicly. On June 10, 2005, Penn made a visit to Iran. Acting as a journalist on an assignment for the San Francisco Chronicle, he attended a Friday prayer at Tehran University. On January 7, 2006, Penn was a special guest at a forum hosted by the Progressive Democrats of America. He was joined by author and media critic Norman Solomon, Democratic congressional candidate Charles Brown, and activist Cindy Sheehan. The "Out of Iraq Forum" was attended by 200 individuals and took place in Sacramento, California. The program was moderated by Bill Dursten, President of the Sacramento Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility. The forum was held at a SEIU union hall and was organized to promote the anti-war movement calling for an end to the War in Iraq. Progressive activists, Democratic Party leaders, and other individuals gathered to demonstrate their impatience and frustration with U.S. involvement in Iraq. In 2005, Penn appeared at the ACLU of Northern California's annual Bill of Rights Day Celebration to present Sister Helen Prejean with the Chief Justice Earl Warren Civil Liberties Award for her work opposing the death penalty. In September 2005, Penn traveled to New Orleans, Louisiana, to aid Hurricane Katrina victims. He was physically involved in rescuing people. He was and is supported by best-selling author Douglas Brinkley, a professor of history at Tulane University and archival historian for the city. The two were seen on CNN coverage September 2, 2005, as Penn, filthy, soaked, and exhausted, gave an impromptu interview about what he was seeing and doing, and obviously critical of the response until that time, stating that at that time he felt there was only "about one-fifth" the assistance and resources there that needed to be. On April 19, 2007, Penn appeared on The Colbert Report and had a "Meta-Free-Phor-All" versus Stephen Colbert that was judged by Robert Pinsky. This stemmed from some of Penn's criticisms of President Bush. His exact quote was "We cower as you point your fingers telling us to support our troops. You and the smarmy pundits in your pocket – those who bathe in the moisture of your soiled and blood-soaked underwear – can take that noise and shove it." He won the contest 10,000,000, to Stephen Colbert's 1. On December 7, 2007, Penn said he is supporting Ohio Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich for U.S. President in 2008, and criticized President Bush's handling of the Iraq war. Penn questioned whether Bush's twin daughters supported the war in Iraq. |
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