‘I’m aware I can be a difficult person to like’: Sean Penn gets candid about his reputation but blames ‘arrogant’ directors who don’t respect actors
He has, fairly or unfairly, earned a reputation for being difficult to work with.
And it’s something Sean Penn himself alluded to when he accepted the Best Actor Oscars for Milk at the 2009 Academy Awards, telling the audience: ‘I did not expect this… and I want it to be very clear that I do know how hard I make it to appreciate me, often.’
On Wednesday, Howard Stern asked the actor about it and Penn, 59, acknowledged that he has butted heads with directors who he believed did not deliver on what they had promised him.
Sean Penn acknowledged Wednesday that he has a reputation for being difficult but explained it’s due to butting heads with directors who failed to deliver on what they had promised him
‘There’ve been several times I’ve worked with directors who I felt might have found a different job description, and perhaps weren’t the storytellers that their initial meetings with each of us actors might have indicated,’ Penn explained to Stern on the shock jock’s SiriusXM show.
‘Actors are kind of canaries in the coalmine emotionally, and you have to go to whatever place is necessary inside yourself. If you don’t have somebody there who at least respects that – most of what I was referring to is that the arrogance goes further than charm,’ he said.
Penn added: ‘I am aware that I can be a difficult person to like from afar.’
The actor, 59, made his candid comments during an appearance on Howard Stern’s SiriusXM radio show
Stern asked him about his Oscar acceptance speech for Milk in 2009 where he said: ‘I want it to be very clear that I do know how hard I make it to appreciate me, often.’
‘There’ve been several times I’ve worked with directors who I felt… perhaps weren’t the storytellers that their initial meetings with each of us actors might have indicated,’ Penn said
In Milk, Penn starred as openly gay activist Harvey Milk who was elected to the San Francisco Board Of Supervisors in 1977 and was assassinated in November 1978 along with the city’s mayor George Moscone.
The film, released to critical acclaim in 2008, was directed by Gus Van Sant.
Penn won his first Academy Award in 2004, taking home the Best Actor Oscar for Mystic River.
He had previously been nominated three times in the category – for 1995’s Dead Man Walking, 1999’s Sweet And Lowdown and 2001’s I Am Sam.
Penn is currently focusing on the work of his nonprofit organization Community Organized Relief Effort (CORE) which is administering free COVID-19 tests across the US during the pandemic.
Penn is currently focusing on the work of his nonprofit Community Organized Relief Effort (CORE) which is administering free COVID-19 tests across the US during the pandemic