Sean Penn on 60 Minutes

[MC]

Sean Penn was recently interviewed on "60 Minutes," and the CBS News website has an article online based on this interview. Eastwood-related bits:

...Penn is now being acclaimed as one of the finest, if not the finest, film actor of his generation. And one of the reasons is his Oscar award-winning performance in "Mystic River," a dark, disturbing film about child abuse, loyalty, revenge, and the murder of Penn's teenaged daughter.

"He read the script. He called me back and said, 'This is a beast.' But he said, 'I love it,'" recalls the film's director, Clint Eastwood. "He has an ability to involve himself in the character that you see rarely."

What was the hardest scene for Penn to shoot?

"It was the scene where myself and Kevin Chapman are approaching the crime scene. So, I said to Clint, 'Look, if a couple of guys put their hands on me, somebody's gonna get hurt ... I'm gonna do everything I can to get to my daughter.' And so he said, 'OK'. And that was it. I figured OK, I'm just trusting Clint Eastwood," says Penn.

"And we started the scene, and before I knew it, there were about 18 policemen on me. And there wasn't a muscle in my body that could move. There was nothing I could do to hurt anybody. By the end of two takes of that, I was ready for an oxygen tank, but nobody got hurt and I got to go as far as I wanted to go."

[Penn] flirts with the idea of pursuing his burgeoning career as a director and quitting acting altogether - an idea that troubles his "Mystic River" director.

"I think probably at this particular time and of his generation of actors coming up, he's probably the very best," says Eastwood.

For the entire article and pics of Penn, visit:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/01/60II/main586211.shtml

[vik]

cool - i thought he was great

the story needed the three central characters to give great perfomances and they did

if pushed i would say its penn's scenes that stand out the most for me - three  
                                  the one on the balcony
                                  the shooting scene
                                  and then when he is told that
                                  the killer has been found

- still waiting for that car to run him over

[mgk]

Thanks for posting that, MC.  I saw that 60 Minutes program, too, and found it to be a fascinating insight into who Sean Penn is and how others see him as well.  What did his wife, Robin Wright, call the sixteen years she has been with him?  A beautiful terror?