Sean Penn Quotations | Page 2

What happens is things come to you - director, script - and if you respond to it, it's because it's tapping into some part of what's inside you, and different roles tap into different parts.

When I was growing up and somebody like Robert De Niro had a movie come out, it was a cultural event. Because he had such a confidence and a single mission that was so intimate.

You're always having to live more to fuel something new. It's an obligation to yourself and to the audience. The personal baggage that comes with being a known actor just adds to that struggle.

Well, I think that when you direct a movie or write it. And in the case of the two movies I did, I wrote and directed, they occupy a special place for you.

All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz, and I'm fine

Putting something in a movie because it's in the news doesn't make it political to me. If you're not going outside the same old, same old, if you're not pushing the envelope, then you're not doing anything. A good movie is a political thing.

On any movie I'm involved with, I say what I think.

Fulfilling what you start is why you start something.

The thing that's very close in the process is writing and acting, not directing. Directing's very different.

There's not a lot of good movies being made.

I don't think you can get away with putting your talents in a toilet bowl and not having them flushed away. Forever. There is a level of murder of one's soul and of the culture that they're supposed to be feeding vitamins to...

The one thing you can count on in Hollywood - across the board - is cowardice.

You tolerate me. You really tolerate me.

I think that people like the Howard Sterns, the Bill O'Reillys and to a lesser degree the bin Ladens of the world are making a horrible contribution.

Haiti kind of gets a hold of you.

I regret my El Chapo interview didn't spark debate about the war on drugs.

A SWAT team surrounded my house and came in every door. But it happened because on the day that we split up, Madonna developed a concern that if she were to return to the house, she would get a very severe haircut.

When I go to bed at night and I think of humanity at large, I think of all those things.

I don't believe 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 politics that apply to the protection of quality of life in any sense. It's like talking to a member of a cult.

And dressed her [Madonna] up like a turkey. After I read that stuff, I thought long and hard about what one would do to dress someone up like a turkey. And I nailed it. I figured you've got to get out the Playtex glove, blow it up and put the glove over the head.

There is a kind of sense of truth and reconciliation that is non-formalized, but it's understood and accepted. Haitians are Haitians and there is an inherent loyalty that forgives an awful lot.

In short form I'll say it was an approach to the family and to [author] Jon Krakauer that then led to me seeming to rise to the top of the heap of several filmmakers that were trying to get the rights. And by top of the heap I mean in terms of being somebody that was trusted to do it as they said they were going to attempt to do it and that this way of doing it would be something they would be willing to allow.

It's a foreground of my feeling. That place moves me. And I don't mean my country; it's part of our shared natural world that happens to be particular to a sense of wherever my storytelling inclinations come from and my own history of kind of being a road rat and travelling.

The advice you give to young directors for sure is to go out and become some version of a successful movie actor. Do that first and say yes to people like Terrence Malick and Clint Eastwood and Woody Allen when they come and offer you movies. It's a great front row seat to filmmaking.

Jon Krakauer had documented it very accurately and very well but this kid made a real impression on people, and likewise they on him. To talk to them was very moving in many cases because they talk about him like they saw him yesterday. In most cases they knew this kid for a couple of weeks in their whole life and he just lasted with them.

Whatever I was able to do with those experiences certainly contribute to whatever I'm able to do as a director. The corruption in that is that most of what I acted in the last 10 years was to steal film school time from these guys. Those were the people I thought I could learn from as a director.

The heartbreak that it might not happen wasn't something that I wanted to face with any more weight. Then, when I got the call to go ahead I never thought for a second as I was approaching it who I would get - that would come later. Again, I think the idea was that I now had the rights to make the movie and I can start writing it but if I have to wait another 10 years before I find an actor that's right for it, I'd be very happy to do that.

I can't imagine being quite as lucky at any other time - I certainly never have been before. That goes right down from my producing partners to people like Eddie Vedder. But the two things that make me feel that this was meant to be now and not before was that the story itself has more resonance today - I find it a more important story today than it was then - and Emile.

My greatest interest in it was certainly not to avoid those things that were going to be controversial about the family but the interest I had in the story was predominantly what he was pursuing and not as much what he was fleeing.

Well, it was interesting because when I was going to do it the first time in my head was Leonardo DiCaprio [for Chris] and Marlon Brando was going to play the character that Hal Holbrook eventually played. But then when it wasn't to be and there was no promise that it ever would be I think some part of me didn't want to attach specifics to it anymore - actors or anything else - because I wanted to see it made that much more badly.

One of the things you don't have in Haiti is you don't have anybody on crack doing something completely out of - that's unpredictable. Even at the worst times in Haiti, the violence that had happened, the lack of security that happened, was largely predictable because it was politically tied.

I can tell you that my contribution based on my interpretation of the book is unchanged. The other things, in terms of doing the research and following the trail of it, were probably pretty similar to what I would have done then. I think that what makes me celebrate that it took the 10 years is the various other people and contributors that I ended up having on board.

Haiti, like any place, has its security problems; it has a great challenge in terms of establishing a kind of globally acceptable rule of law.