Quotes from Sean Penn

I wanted to come to Iraq and see Iraqi faces - children, adults, diplomats, anybody that implies - and go home with some impressions that will not let me off the hook. . . . It's not abstract anymore.

Sacrificing American soldiers or innocent civilians in an unprecedented preemptive attack on a separate sovereign nation may well prove itself a most temporary medicine.

[The above two quotes and photo were said and taken before Bush, Blair and Howard's 2003 invasion and subsquent occupation of Iraq.]

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.

There's the death penalty as society deals with it and legislates it, and I'm against it.

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

You tolerate me, you really tolerate me.

Some of my reactions to acting are very negative, and take me places I no longer really want to go.

So, if you're an artist who is in it just for the money, I would be against you.

I don't like any directors. I don't get along with any of them. Mostly, I think they're a bunch of whiny people without any point of view. So I don't want to be around them at six o'clock in the morning with make-up and bells on; and I'm probably the same way for the actors on my own set, but that's their problem.

I'm in the showbizz because I need Money!

When I direct or write I can express myself, all my soul, all my heart: But, goddamn, Hollywood wants me as an actor, not as a director or a writer. They don't care about you want. They call you to make money. You're just something - not somebody - which draw out money from. When they don't need you anymore, they throw you away. They give you clichés and you have to behave in the way they expect.

I hate journalists. Or better. I hate paparazzi. Yeah, I punched them out and I'll do it again if it's necessary. I think a fist in their face is the only way to protect my private life. I demand my freedom. And I must have it.

If too many people like you, you're doing something wrong.

If there's anything disgusting in the movie business, it is the whoredom of my peers.

So if we have anything original to offer, it's to speak from our own life about the society we're in.

1 think, you know, if the right project kind of came along that I would be able to direct, I would love to do that.

There are a few directors around who I have some excitement about spending my $7 at the theatre watching their movies.

At this stage, what would be rewarding would be for audiences to want to watch.

But I'm never again going to do a movie as an actor where I'm enjoying myself. It's not fun, and it doesn't have to be.

Child-rearing is my main interest now. I'm a hands-on father.

Directing is the ultimate job of an appreciator.

Directors like Alejandro come along very rarely, and you're very lucky if you stumble across one in your life as an actor.

I appreciate words, and I appreciate acting, so combining those elements into a film is the ultimate act of appreciation.


I don't have any particular excitement about working with any specific director or actor at this point.

I like to believe that love is a reciprocal thing, that it can't really be felt, truly, by one.

I love acting, truly my favorite people are actors.

I really love to make movies.

I start to giggle the minute that Gary Shandling walks in a room, so I'm going to have to say Gary was the funniest.

I think it's much more important to direct movies but if it's going to take five years between each one then I'll have to make up for that.

I think life's an irrational obsession.

I think that any time you really concentrate, there's a certain amount of adrenaline rush, yeah.

I think that I've still not been successful at playing the role of the retired actor, and I'd like to work on that.

I think that you become a bit enlightened to the concerns of the filmmaking process more when you direct.


I think we all have light and dark inside us.


I think you start to prepare the minute you read something.

I'm a little bit computer illiterate.

I've never really been one to get what they call stage fright so much.

If I win the lottery, I'm gonna direct three to four pictures every four to five years, instead of one - and there won't be time to act..

If you're willing to put two thoughts into a picture then you're already ahead of the game.

In between, I go broke because I seem to do movies where you're not paid a lot as an actor.

It has nothing to do with the emotional demands of a role; I've done comedies that are as draining to me as any drama.

It varies from role to role and the type of the piece and the people you're working with. All those factors contribute to how you function on a movie.

Love is a mess, at best, and I figure it can be very real in spite of all the things people try to attach to it.

Marriage ain't easy, but it's great most of the time.

My daughter is changing so rapidly now that her likes are different every day, and I love being involved with that.

My favorite thing to do is not act - it's that simple.

Oh, I'm a big-mouth. I said a lot of things.

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

Once in a while, one of these Hollywood-Hollywood movies works like the old ones did.

Somewhere along the line, the actions of this government are the actions of me.

That on a romantic level, if you feel it about somebody and it's pure, it means that they do too.


The bottom line is, you love your wife, you do your best with that.


The first role was something on stage and it was 20-something years ago.

There is no re-inventing the wheel.

There's a lot of mediocrity being celebrated, and a lot of wonderful stuff being ignored or discouraged.

There've been a couple of times when I've gotten the offer to do the odd one that'll make the bank big forever.

To look at the world as it is now, without recognising and acknowledging that there is a gigantic bearer of revenge and redemption, would be criminal on behalf of a filmmaker.

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.

Well, look at all of these summer blockbusters. You can't help but laugh a little, because you've already seen a lot of these movies 482 times.

Well, outside of the excitement of being able to participate in anything with somebody like Terry Malick who I have a great admiration for, was diving the Great Barrier Reef on the weekend.

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.

Whenever I've been on the other side of the law, as it were, I've never conspired to do malice toward somebody, so I didn't feel like now the shoe was on the other foot or anything like that.

Yeah, I had a tremendous time shooting in Nebraska. I like that state a lot, all over it.

Yeah, I had actually tried to stop acting before I made Dead Man Walking.


You can't get paid $20 million for the kind of movies I want to do,

You try to do your best at what you're getting paid for.