Sean Penn (born 1960) is a Californian actor born in Santa Monica.
In his outstanding career as a performer, Sean Penn has managed to win two Oscars for his appearance in two unforgettable films: Mystic River (2003) and Milk (2009). Likewise, he has participated in films directed by Brian de Palma and other great directors of the time.
1. I like to believe that love is a reciprocal thing, that you can’t really feel it.
Your ethical proposal on this feeling.
2. Only in innocence do you find any kind of magic, any kind of courage.
That’s why he understands children’s minds so well.
3. If you can’t count on your heart to have some kind of unified response, you can’t count on anything. You use your heart as a barometer to complete the movie.
A unique and personal way to round out a beautiful story.
4. In summary, I will say that it was a rapprochement with the family and the author Jon Krakauer, which led me to seem at the top of the pile of several filmmakers who were trying to obtain the rights. And I mean the top of the heap in terms of being someone who was trusted to do it, since they said they were going to try to do it and that this way of doing it would be something they would be willing to allow.
About an episode of his professional life.
5. The bottom line is that you love your wife, you do your best with that.
About love and marriage.
6. That on a romantic level, if you have feelings for someone and it’s pure, it means they do too.
About the feeling of love.
7. There is no shame when I say that we all want to be loved.
That’s how it is, even though he seems like a tough guy.
8. I think it is a good time for those who voted for the ban on gay marriage to sit back and reflect and anticipate their great shame and the shame in the eyes of their grandchildren if they continue with that form of support. We must have the same rights for everyone.
9. Well, I’m pretty anti-legend, I just don’t think they’re useful. So that certainly wouldn’t be my intention. But will it contribute to that? Of course. Any medication can be misused. But I think there is great courage, innocence and magic to him, that more than a legend it is about connection.
A reflection by Sean Penn that allows us to think long and hard.
10. Mediocrity is much celebrated and many wonderful things are ignored or discouraged.
Public favor is usually quite unfair.
11. A child has a fever in the United States and it is high enough and sustainable, all of us can take a child to an emergency room. Most Haitians never had that opportunity. They didn’t have the emergency room to take them. Virtually every time his son has a fever, he waits for him to die and has no clean water to give him.
About the differences between the first world and the Caribbean country, one of the poorest on the planet.
12. So, if we have something original to offer, it is to talk from our own life about the society in which we find ourselves.
Each biography is unique and has great added value.
13. I believe we all have light and darkness within us.
We are capable of the best and the worst.
14. I am not going to advocate recklessness, but somewhere, proving yourself and proactively seeking a rite of passage has become necessary because in Western developed countries we have become so addicted to convenience.
A phrase about how to get out of the comfort zone.
15. The sense of self, and the way one shares it, is perhaps the most valuable and poetic gift in the arsenal of one’s life and art.
Self-awareness, in other words.
16. If there is something unpleasant in the movie business, it is the fornication of my colleagues.
Promiscuity behind the scenes has always been commented on.
17. I will not have a better day, a more magical moment than the first time I heard my daughter laugh.
Sean Penn remembers this moment with great nostalgia.
18. Regardless of what one considers art to be, in many people there is a desire to express themselves creatively and to feel authentic while doing so.
Maybe that’s what the artistic fact is based on.
19. I think life is an irrational obsession.
No one in their right mind would want to stay here for long.
20. I’m not good at talking to strangers, whether they’re sick kids or not, I’m just not good. I’m shy about that.
About his introverted personality.
21. I have lost the taste for acting
In 2018 he spoke like this about his boredom with the world of cinema.
22. The first instinct is love.
The instinct that invites us to reproduce.
23. There is the old idea that where there are options, there is chaos, and where there is no other option, there is clarity. If you have no other choice, you must be there, and you must have your heart in it. It leads to a much less self-conscious life.
Great reflection on the possibilities in life.
24. Putting something in a movie because it’s in the news is not political to me. A good movie is something political.
If it doesn’t have a message, an idea, it’s not worth it.
25. I would do anything to get a gig, without malice.
A role is a role.
26. I just want real creative freedom without worrying about, you know, car payments.
Whatever it takes to live and pay bills.
27. I think you start preparing the moment you read something.
Talking about reading scripts.
28. I really love making movies.
His devotion to cinema was extraordinary.
29. Well, the central type of question: “Do you want to live, and I don’t mean stay alive? Do you want to feel your life while you’re living it?” You know, there’s a place to go that was here before us and that’s going to be here after us, so get out there. It doesn’t take someone who has a self-important sense of their own attachment to nature to recognize that you’re just stupid if you don’t go out.
The importance of living to the fullest.
30. Parenting is my main interest now. I am a practical father.
A quote from Sean Penn about his priority in life: the education of his children.
31. As a foreign worker in Haiti, speaking for myself, speaking on behalf of the workers, our organization is 95% Haitian, but even the foreign workers who drive have had minimal safety problems.
About the Caribbean country.
32. I don’t want to lie, play games, hurt someone, or hurt myself. You can only move in one direction.
Honesty only has one way.
33. I don’t read newspapers much, only because they tend to make me feel like I have a political obligation which I think is a distraction from what my political offerings will be if I just make my films.
A reflection about his political position and the mediatization of the news.
34. I don’t see myself as a different man than I was ten years ago. I have no aspirations to be. It’s about where you are putting your energies. That is changing a lot.
Sean Penn looks back and reflects on how his identity has remained more or less intact over time.
35. Words like maturity scare me a little.
An opinion about the concept of maturity, linked to that of responsibility and loss of freedom.
36. In a movie, it’s always best to stay invisible as much as possible to stay calm. I like to whisper to my cameraman, I like to whisper to my actors and anyone else I’ve whispered something to.
About maintaining a subtle quality when working as an actor.
37. I don’t see life as an opportunity to see how far you can go in the pursuit of pain, although I think I’ve challenged it a bit.
The rejection of a tragic interpretation of life.
38. Reputations are maintained by the outside world, and are also created by it, in general. And they serve as one hell of a privacy device, because the more people search for something that’s not there, the less chance they have of knowing who you are. It’s like going out with a mask on, without having to exercise your upper body to put it on.
A reflection on privacy.
39. You always have to live longer to feed something new. It is an obligation for you and for the audience. The personal baggage that comes with being a well-known actor adds to that struggle.
The experience provides psychological richness.
40. I believe that this is a big world full of men, women and children who fight to eat, love, work, protect their families, their beliefs and their dreams.
A positive perception of families around the world.
41. Try to do the best for what you are paid for.
Focusing on what motivates us is the way to progress better.
42. The two films I made, wrote and directed hold a special place for you.
A personal appreciation of the actor’s professional experience.
43. All I need is some tasty waves, a fresh buzz, and I’m fine.
An ideal landscape to relax.
44. I don’t have any particular excitement about working with a specific director or actor right now.
There is not always an emotional charge associated with working with someone.
45. I believe that if you want good things to happen for a country like Haiti, then you must provide the circumstances in which Haitians can do so.
Beyond the will are the material possibilities of carrying out useful measures.
46. ​​There is a kind of sense of truth and reconciliation that is not formalized, but is understood and accepted. Haitians are Haitians and there is an inherent loyalty that is very forgiving.
About that which is not questioned.
47. I don’t think I have yet succeeded in playing the role of the retired actor, and I would like to work on that.
Another of the curiosities of this actor.
48. I’m a big Woody Allen fan. Good movie, bad movie, it doesn’t matter, I only like his movies.
A type of movies that have their own quality scale.
49. The only thing you can count on in Hollywood, in general, is cowardice.
The vocation to be commercial leads to a lack of honesty and commitment, according to this artist.
50. Everything I was able to do with those experiences certainly contributes to everything I can do as a director. The corruption in that is that most of what I did in the last 10 years was stealing these guys’ film school time. Those were the people I thought I could learn from as a director.
Learning works in two ways.
51. The advice you give to young directors is to go out and become a version of a successful movie actor. Do that first and say yes to people like Terrence Malick, Clint Eastwood and Woody Allen when they come pitching you movies. It’s a great front row seat to filmmaking.
About the beginnings in the industry.
52. I don’t think there are climate skeptics. I think there are people who indulge in a culture of what can be reduced to Fox network thinking. That has nothing to do with the policy that applies to protecting the quality of life in any sense. It’s like talking to a member of a cult.
Criticism of a way of thinking depending on the big headlines.
53. When you act in a movie, you are inevitably surrounded by people you didn’t choose, even the painter. I like being able to choose the family I’m waking up to in the morning that will make this group strive to tell a story that applies to what’s interesting to me at that stage of my life.
You do not have the power to decide over everything that happens.
54. If you’re willing to put two thoughts in one picture, then you’re already ahead of the game.
About the creative process of telling stories.
55. At this stage, what would be rewarding would be if audiences wanted to watch.
Opinion about the motivations of the general public.
56. I regret that my interview with El Chapo did not spark the debate about the war on drugs.
One of Sean Penn’s phrases that refer to his appreciation of the impact of his work.
57. It is a close-up of my feelings. That place moves me. And I’m not talking about my country; It’s part of our shared natural world that happens to be particular to the sense of where my storytelling inclinations come from and my own history of being a rat and traveling.
About a common homeland.
58. I have never been one of those who feel what they call stage fright.
A curiosity about Sean Penn’s way of being.
59. I can make a better living as an actor than as a director. Although he would certainly prefer to direct films.
Two professions that provide different incentives.
60. I love acting, really my favorite people are actors.
About the relationship between pleasure and work of this actor.
61. I’ll tell you what I’d probably prefer to happen less and less: actors I know and respect in shampoo ads. Or modeling.
Personal opinion about the public image of professional colleagues.
62. Sticking to what you start is the reason you start something.
A way of seeing what motivates us.
63. I can always see the light in any situation. It’s just the way I’m made.
Sean Penn talks about his propensity for optimism.
64. In any film I participate in, I say what I think.
Declaration of intentions based on honesty.
65. What is very close in the process is writing and acting, not directing. Directing is very different.
A way to classify different creative works in the world of cinema.
66. I don’t think you can get away with putting your talents in the toilet bowl and not having them go away.
Using your own artistic skills to create mediocre products takes its toll.
67. There aren’t many good movies being made.
An opinion about the state of current cinema.
68. Marriage isn’t easy, but it’s great most of the time.
About life together between two lovers.
69. Sacrificing American soldiers or innocent civilians in an unprecedented preemptive strike against a separate sovereign nation may well prove to be more temporary medicine.
Approaches against war and unnecessary deaths.
70. I lost a friend I was lucky to have. My thoughts are with the family of President Chávez and the people of Venezuela.
One of the signs of the extent to which Sean Penn has not stayed away from politics in his statements.
