Sean Penn's film performances have earned him a reputation for dramatic intensity, but to many filmgoers he will always be remembered as Jeff Spicoli, the teenage stoner from Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982). Penn made his movie debut in 1981's Taps (alongside Tom Cruise) and became known as a serious dramatic actor during the '80s, in films such as Bad Boys (1983) and At Close Range (1986, with Christopher Walken). His marriage to Madonna (1985-89) thrust Penn further into the spotlight, and he went from being known as an intense young actor to being known as an intense young actor who punched photographers (he even spent a brief time in jail for assault in 1987). In the '90s Penn tried to give up acting in favor of writing and directing; he made The Indian Runner (1991) and two films starring Jack Nicholson: The Crossing Guard (1995) and The Pledge (2000). He returned to the screen in 1993 to co-star with Al Pacino in Carlito's Way, then starred in Dead Man Walking (1995) and earned an Oscar nomination. He went on to be nominated again for Woody Allen's Sweet and Lowdown (1999) and for I Am Sam (2001, with Dakota Fanning), and in 2004 he won his first Best Actor Oscar for Mystic River (2003, co-starring Tim Robbins). Among his other films are 21 Grams (2003) and All The King's Men (2006).
Penn married actress Robin Wright in 1996. They have two children: a daughter Dylan (b. 1991) and a son Hopper Jack (b. 1993)... Sean Penn's younger brother, Christopher Penn (1965-2006), was also a film actor, and his older brother, Michael Penn (b. 1958), is a singer and songwriter.
Career Highlights: Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Dead Man Walking, Before Night Falls
First Major Screen Credit: Taps (1981)
Biography
Long the bad boy of Hollywood, Sean Penn is also among the most fiercely talented actors of his generation. He was born August 17, 1960, in Burbank, CA, the second son of actress Eileen Ryan and director Leo Penn. He grew up in Santa Monica, in a neighborhood populated by future celebrities Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez, the sons of actor Martin Sheen. Penn's older brother, Michael, is a singer/songwriter-turned- director, while younger sibling Chris is a noted character actor. The children spent much of their free time together, making a number of amateur films shot with Super-8 cameras. Still, Penn's original intention was to attend law school, although he ultimately skipped college to join the Los Angeles Repertory Theater. After making his professional debut on an episode of television's Barnaby Jones, he relocated to New York, where he soon appeared in the play Heartland. A TV-movie, The Killing of Randy Webster, followed in 1981 before he made his feature debut later that same year in Taps.
Penn shot to stardom with 1982's Fast Times at Ridgemont High; as the stoned surfer dude Jeff Spicoli, he stole every scene in which he appeared, helping to elevate the picture into a classic of the teen comedy genre; however, the quirkiness which would define his career quickly surfaced as he turned down any number of Spicoli-like roles to star in the 1983 drama Bad Boys, followed a year later by the Louis Malle caper comedy Crackers and the period romance Racing With the Moon. While none of the pictures performed well at the box office, critics consistently praised Penn's depth as an actor. A turn as a drug addict turned government spy in John Schlesinger's 1985 political thriller The Falcon and the Snowman earned some of his best notices to date, but Penn's performance was quickly lost in the glare of the media attention surrounding his very public romance with pop singer Madonna, which culminated in the couple's 1985 media-circus wedding.
While Madonna actively courted press attention, the private Penn made his loathing for the media quite clear; his run-ins with the paparazzi quickly became the stuff of legend, and the notoriety of his temper began to eclipse even his immense acting ability. His penchant for fisticuffs, combined with other civil infractions, ultimately resulted in a 30-day jail sentence; more seriously, his marriage to Madonna began to buckle under the weight of media scrutiny, and, as the couple's star collaboration in the 1987 movie Shanghai Surprise met with box-office disaster, their private relationship was also over. Soured by the Hollywood experience, Penn did not resurface prior to 1988's Colors, which proved to be his biggest hit in some time. He next appeared in Brian DePalma's Vietnam tale Casualties of War, followed by a turn opposite his idol, Robert De Niro, in the 1989 comedy We're No Angels.
After starring in the gangster melodrama State of Grace, Penn wrote and directed 1991's The Indian Runner, a film inspired by a Bruce Springsteen song and shaped in the image of the films of John Cassavetes. After an almost unrecognizable turn as a troubled attorney in the 1993 DePalma thriller Carlito's Way, Penn announced his intention to retire from acting in order to focus his full attentions on directing; however, after helming 1995's The Crossing Guard with Jack Nicholson and Anjelica Huston, he was back onscreen, winning an Academy Award nomination for his gut-wrenching portrayal of a death-row inmate in Tim Robbins' Dead Man Walking. By 1997, Penn's wishes for retirement were but a memory as he enjoyed his busiest year yet: In addition to starring opposite second wife Robin Wright in Nick Cassavetes' She's So Lovely -- roles which won both spouses acting honors at the Cannes Film Festival -- he also appeared in the David Fincher thriller The Game and in Oliver Stone's U-Turn. He found further acclaim the following year for his roles in the adaptation of David Rabe's Hurlyburly and Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line. In 1999, he had a cameo appearance in Spike Jonze's Being John Malkovich and earned his second Oscar nomination as a callous '30s jazz guitarist in Woody Allen's Sweet and Lowdown, while 2000s adaptation of Anita Shreve's novel, The Weight of Water, starred Penn as a poet embroiled in a small town murder mystery. In 2001, Penn would play a fame-craving impressionist in The Beaver Trilogy, serve as narrator in director Stacy Peralta's skateboarding documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys, and direct the psychological drama The Pledge, which marked Penn's second collaboration with Jack Nicholson. In 2002, Penn would once again win critical praise with his Oscar-nominated portrayal of a developmentally disabled man struggling to retain custody of his daughter in I Am Sam.
After the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the left-leaning actor's outspoken political views garnered a great deal of attention from right-wing pundits, including the much aggrieved Bill O'Reilly, who found himself on the receiving end of Penn's animosity in a controversial interview with Talk magazine. Though O'Reilly demanded his viewers boycott any of Penn's future films, it appears his career has remained relatively unscathed. In 2002, Penn directed a segment for the French-produced 9'11"01, which was met with mixed reviews, while his participation in Burkowski: Born Into This (2002) helped the film win a nomination for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival.
The year 2003 was, in fact, an eventful year for Penn; he participated in two small but nonetheless critically acclaimed films -- Michael Almereyda's documentary This So-Called Disaster and Alejandro González Iñárritu's low-key urban drama 21 Grams -- while managing to claim yet another Hollywood success in actor/director Clint Eastwood's highly lauded Mystic River. In 2004, it was this third film that garnered Penn his fourth Academy Award nomination and, ultimately, his first win. The Oscar, coupled with a standing ovation by the audience, showed once and for all that Penn's unorthodox approach to his acting career hadn't had an adverse effect on his popularity.
The following year Penn would return to the screen to document one man's chilling descent into madness in the fact-based psychological drama The Assassination of Richard Nixon, but despite generally favorable reaction from critics the grim feature failed to make much of an impression at the box office. Subsequently sticking to politics with Sydney Pollock's 2005 thriller The Interpreter, Penn would this time find his character attempting to prevent the assassination of a high profile political leader rather than personally carry one out. By the time Penn essayed the role of a populist Southern politician modeled loosely on Depression-era Louisiana governer Huey Long, it seemed as if the serious-minded actor's career had finally become as political as the boat-rocking rhetoric that often found him sailing into the headlines. The third screen adaptation of Robert Penn Warren's influential novel, All the King's Men featured an impressive list of top-name Hollywood talent including Jude Law, Kate Winslett, Anthony Hopkins, Patricia Clarkson, James Gandolfini, and Mark Ruffalo. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
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, who
was convicted of espionage for the Soviet Union and was
originally sentenced to life in prison. Lee was paroled in 1998. According to a 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.[7]
Penn's personal life began to attract media attention when he married pop starMadonna 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 Sean 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. After a divorce in 1989, Penn started a relationship with Robin Wright, with whom he had
two children, daughter Dylan Frances (1991) and son Hopper Jack (1993), before they married in 1996. They live in Ross, California. (On The Daily Show for
January 18, 2007, Robin said she and Sean had been together
"almost 20 years".)
His younger brother, Chris, famous for playing Nice Guy Eddie in
Reservoir Dogs, was found dead in his Santa Monica condominium on January 24,
2006.
Political/social causes
Sean Penn
On October 18, 2002, Penn placed a $56,000 advertisement in
the Washington Post asking PresidentGeorge 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".[9] Chávez
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".[10]
On August 3, 2007, Penn met with Hugo Chávez in Caracas for
two hours. Chávez praised his bravery in urging Americans to impeach President Bush. Penn applauded portions of Chávez's speech,
including his characterization of the invasion of Iraq as genocide. Penn's visit led to condemnation from Venezuelan exiles, who
describe Chávez as a totalitarian leader trying to control Venezuelan society.[11]
In September 2005, Penn traveled to New Orleans, Louisiana to aid HurricaneKatrina victims. He was physically involved in rescuing[13] many people. One man was 73-year-old John Brown, who had told his sister over the phone: "Guess who
come and got me out of the house? Sean Penn, the actor. The boys were really nice."[citation needed] The actor then gave some rescuees an
unspecified amount of money to tide them over, and then took those who were in need of medical attention to the hospital. 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 Friday,
September 2, 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 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 Normon 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.
On December 18, 2006, Penn received the Christopher Reeve First Amendment Award from the The Creative Coalition.[14] On March 24, 2007, Penn publicly criticized President Bush and his handling of the war
in Iraq. Penn questioned whether President Bush's twin daughters supported the war in Iraq, and said "Let's show them we can fire
this president and put him in fucking jail".[15]
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.
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