The Louis Theroux Podcast - S5 EP2: Sean Penn on dining with Jack Nicholson and Putin, run-ins with the paparazzi, and his relationship with Zelenskyy

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

Louis travels to Los Angeles to sit down with Hollywood heavyweight and international adventurer, Sean Penn. Renowned for award-winning roles in films like Milk, I Am Sam and Carlito’s Way, Sean discusses his colourful life and career, including dining with Jack Nicholson and Vladimir Putin in Moscow, his relationship with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his notorious run-ins with the paparazzi. Warnings: Strong language.   Links/Attachments:    Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzva_I8WPAg     Mystic River (2003)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7NktJhrRYQ     Milk (2008)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5D07rmfwG0     Dead Man Walking (1995)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgvbfLNYumU     Carlito’s Way (1993)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZMd4Baswb4    The Apprentice (2024)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_OeYJXXlw0     Superpower (2023)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X54GUzUUM3w     One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXrcDonY-B8     TV Show: ‘Euphoria’ (2019 – Present) - HBO  https://www.hbo.com/euphoria     Long Day’s Journey into Night (1962)  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056196/     TV Show: ‘Normal People’ (2020) - BBC / Hulu  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1JQuWxt3cE    Shanghai Surprise (1986)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbW06buYw0Y     Song: ‘Like a Virgin’, Madonna (1984)  https://open.spotify.com/track/1ZPlNanZsJSPK5h9YZZFbZ     Becoming Madonna (2024) - Sky Documentaries   https://www.sky.com/watch/programme/4f309d01-57b4-42b1-92ca-82eef6ec747e     A Complete Unknown (2024)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdV-Cs5o8mc     Audiobook: ‘Chronicles, Volume I’, Bob Dylan (narrated by Sean Penn) (2004)  https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Chronicles-Volume-1-(Audio)/Bob-Dylan/9780743501613     TV Show: ‘Game of Thrones’ (2011-2019) - HBO  https://www.hbo.com/game-of-thrones     Sweet and Lowdown (1999)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w3fokY0kP0     Daddio (2024)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJrr2amlFyc  One Battle After Another (2025)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap-j8e9J5U0     TV Show: ‘Merlin’ (2008-2012) - BBC  https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00dq8tn/merlin-series-1-1-the-dragons-call?seriesId=b00mjlxv-structural-1-b00dr74v     I am Sam (2001)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ir6_2EkhzAc    Credits:  Producer: Millie Chu   Assistant Producer: Maisie Williams  Production Manager: Francesca Bassett   Music: Miguel D’Oliveira   Audio Mixer: Tom Guest  Video Mixer: Scott Edwards   Shownotes compiled by Immie Webb  Executive Producer: Arron Fellows       A Mindhouse Production for Spotify   www.mindhouse.co.uk   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello? Are there any listeners there? Not funny. Hello, it's me, Louis Theroux, and welcome back to the podcast affectionately known as the Louis Theroux Podcast. Today I'm speaking to Hollywood heavyweight and buccaneering activist Sean Penn. You may be familiar with Sean's work in films like Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Mystic River, Milk, you've got to see Milk. He plays the first openly gay elected official in America, I believe, Harvey Milk, the mayor of San Francisco, Dead Man Walking, Carlito's Way, and many, many more. Over his career, Sean's earned numerous

accolades including two Oscars, a Golden Globe, and an honorary Cesar. Whatever that is. It's a French award, is it? Sean has never been far from the headlines, not just for his incredible movies or his highly publicised relationships with Madonna, among others, about which we talk in the chat, and also his social and political activism, his relationship, well, actually friendship, let's say, with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, travelling to interview drug kingpin El Chapo Guzman, or most recently his vocal support of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky. We talk about these and more in our chat. We recorded this chat in March this year at his house in Malibu. Yes, it was an LTP location taping. We drove up into the hills. It was exciting. It was like, I mean, I guess not that long after the Hollywood fires.

And there he lived at the end of a drive in the hills. There's some of the areas around LA, they've got a very wild wilderness feel. And Sean's house had that kind of atmosphere about it. He was there as we set up our cameras, smoking a little bit. We were in his man cave, a man cave about which I got significant envy. It was almost like the bridge of Star Trek, like in the sense of he had his kind of, he had all his gadgets and accoutrements and everything was arrayed. He had a cockpit kind of with buttons and a place for cigarettes, a place for his remote control, things to fiddle with. It was like the dream scenario for a certain kind of guy who's looking for his space. I don't have one of those. I need one. As we got ready, it was clear, you know, we take a while setting up, he went off either to chop wood or to do some woodworking.

It's referenced in the chat, but he kind of fills a lot of his time by doing carpentry, making shelves, I guess, or cabinet, doing cabinet making. Maybe like just a wood shop, they call that in America, shop, like it's a thing that you learn at school. And then when we were ready, he came back and we got down to it. The chat starts, I think, in Medias res, as we used to say in ancient Rome, in the middle of things. So there's no hanging about, we dive right in. A warning, there is some strong language in the episode. There was a little bit of passive smoking, is that the term? But not for you listeners, only for me.

I quite enjoyed it. All of that and much, much more coming up after this. Have you met Trump? I have, briefly, very briefly, many years ago. Because I was going to say you were married to Madonna And this was in the 80s and in New York Trump was very much a New York animal, right? Yeah, I like to say I I Made the longest flight for the shortest fight because I was working in Thailand and I had bought some treasured

Front row seats ringside seats to see Mike Tyson fight Michael Spinks. And the schedule of the movie that I was working on was going over and over and over, is it possible that you could shoot around me on Wednesday so that I can fly there, see the fight and get back? And he was able to do that. So I drove from Kanchanaburi, Thailand to Bangkok, flew from Bangkok. I think I had to go to Tokyo on the flight I was on. From Tokyo I went to Paris.

From Paris I went to New York. I drove into Manhattan. I picked up my then wife and we drove out to Atlantic City. Fight lasted what a minute, 10 seconds, something like that. I got back in the car, I dropped them off. I went back to the airport, flew back. So yeah, and it was on that trip. It was one of the two times that I met Donald Trump.

What was your impression? Salesman seemed like, very brief, like, hello. And then one the other time he was, he knew my younger brother. And my younger brother would sometimes go with him from New York City to Atlantic City on his helicopter. Does Chris go to the casinos? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You've also commented about the, you know, Trump's appointed this, are they called the

Hollywood ambassadors? And it's Stallone, John Voight, and Mel Gibson. I don't, you called it a clown show. It seems to me that what he's looking for in everything, and I say this because of what he has said that he's looking for, is to control it all, and to make sure that the messaging flatters and does not question him, or his agendas.

If any of them actually work to do that then I would be very critical of that. You know they're very talented men actually and some Isn't likable. No Did I John is challenging He's a wonderful actor. He is yeah It's there. You said he was you got the vibe of a salesman. Is there Do you think he believes in anything? Say again, does he believe in anything? I don't I don't think that this is Just a con job. I think, you know, there's so much about President Trump,

I mean so much history where, you know, he says things that people say, oh, that's never good. He usually really thinks what he's saying, even if it's a lie. You know, he doesn't differentiate between a lie and the truth. It's all about what's going to work for him. That's interesting, because he doesn't really care, really. It's about what's helpful or what makes him feel good. Yeah, the truth was yesterday.

The truth isn't helpful, maybe, right? Yeah, yeah. So you have alternate truths. So what's going to happen with it, I feel like if something is in the process of, something good is in the process of building itself, like a child and you're a parent, it's a good time to be quiet, let it build itself. Or if something is in the process of destroying itself that perhaps should destroy itself, you sit back and be quiet, let it do it, and not'm feeling that things are going so far that no one with let's say an

alternate view is going to stop any of it. No one is going to be heard at all right now. So just wait for it to get a little less loud and so I'm thinking about that with his psychology is not to even consider his psychology, but to just let it do its inevitable misfortune. There's something in the idea that, yeah, that its own logic will be self-destructive and that in triumph begins Catastrophe in a sense. Yeah, I mean who gets hurt first after migrants in this country. It's gonna be his base. Mm-hmm

the internal contradictions of the movement Begin to be exposed. Yeah, I mentioned a lot of those federal employees who are being laid off voted for him. You can bet. Is there any part of the project that you see as a salutary injection of, I don't know, some kind of disruptive energy in an atmosphere that showed signs of becoming overly censorious and orthodox. Yes, I think that there's, you know, I'll look for the silver lining in anything.

I think the advertisement of disruption that he was caught that and maybe people didn't pay enough or enough deep attention to a bad disruption. But our political leaders in particular, I think, equal failure on both sides for the last long period of time in moving towards where we are in the culture. Well, I sometimes wonder if people on the left underestimate him.

And there's this common conception that he's stupid right? Which is hard to buy I personally struggle with the idea that that's sufficient to explain what he is he's well, I think that people will look back and See that he was extremely smart for his time and what it valued. Mm-hmm But what he values is so base That I I don't I I won't equate that with intelligence. It's truly void of soul and really this is the other thing.

It actively engages in cruelty often. And to watch that, you know, when we talk about whether it's what Elon Musk is doing now for him, with him, I don't know if there's any thought behind it at all, except to value destruction of things and people. And so I can't associate that with any intelligence that's going to do humankind any good. What does he value? His own instant reward system. The reward what to his ego and vanity? The tough guy who never was.

He was his father's punk from Queens for a long time. You know he was the tall Q-tip guy in school. He got into business. He got around a lot of real tough guys. Gangsters. Dodged conscription, cadet bone spurs. Yeah. And he found that

he didn't have any of the complications of what I think you or I would associate with morality that would allow him to ride side saddle with real tough guys. That's what it seems like. Did it surprise you went because switching to Hollywood went you, did you see the movie The Apprentice? I did. What did you think? I thought it was exceptional. I really thought it was exceptional. It was a movie that got un-undernoticed.

The actors were extraordinary. Jeremy Strong played Roy Cohn. Roy Cohn. And Trump was played by? Sebastian Stan. Both excellent. And then it struggled to find distribution. I, idiot that I am, thought, well, Hollywood's about money. If they think there's an audience, they'll release the movie.

But it didn't seem to be that simple. Well, the film business is about money, which is not different than any other business. But you can watch how people do some longer projections. So, for example, there were about 20 films about the Ukraine War that were made at the same time that I made one. Many of them exceptional. Almost none of them got distribution. Now one would have thought that would have been a very timely thing and that documentaries, you know, are of great interest and get, you know, the opportunity of great distribution is there because of the new streaming and all of that.

But those companies were not buying that kind of thing because Russia represents a lot of money to them down the line. But the group mentality of it and what happens let's say when an actor, a famous actor, internationally, and filmmaker, was actually living the greatest theme, you know, the hero's journey that is what they want to make all these movies about. You're talking about Zelensky. Yeah. When he offers to come and talk about the power of movies at the moment that he's among the most famous men in the world and I was asked to be the conduit to the Academy to let him speak. This is in 22. Not a political statement.

It's a film about the power of filmmaking. And they traded that for Will Smith slapping Chris Rock. There's a pervasive cowardice that's just much louder in our business because our business is face forward, right? So it's upsetting. I'm gonna be really literal. How does that relate to Chris Rock? Being slapped maybe Emotionally internally if it had if the event had been imbued with a gravitas

You know that Zelensky would have brought Somehow that wouldn't have happened. It wouldn't happen right right now the occasion would have felt Yeah, different. That's right. And what a good thing for that occasion to feel, you know, to have some kind of weight and pride in itself because there's so much, there is a lot for people to be proud of in film. This year was, you know, there were some great films and some that were kind of miracles given where things are in film today miracles that they got made in as well As how well made that they were You know see you keep seeing these little squeaks of hope

Maybe this is too big a thing to open up. Let's talk about Zelinsky for a second So Congratulations on your documentary. I guess it's a year or two ago now that that came out. Is that right? Was Vice Studios made, it's called Superpower? You had access to Zelensky, you made several, maybe five trips over there for the film. Eight total, I don't know how it made sense

with the camera, but yeah. I mean, maybe it's worth talking about how you came to make it because it felt as though you were hunting for a subject for a while, right? You'd spent a bit of time with Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, but this was when you were kind of curious about the fact that he'd survived the Arab Spring. Right. You chilled with him at his place? Well, let's be careful here. What I did, so I went to meet with him. And the idea was,

there were two things, because the war was very active. And I wanted to know that we would not be restrained or monitored in the sense of I wanted to talk to what had been known as opposition journalists. I wanted to speak to ISIS prisoners. I wanted to be able to stop on the street and go talk to the average person. I wanted kind of full access and freedom to do that without a minder. And he was absolutely, we have nothing to hide, so on. And then he said that his wife had made lunch and that we should go to lunch. And so we went and I got into his car and he drove and it was a small economy car and we went to the house no sign of security of any kind. He's there with his wife and his children. Children are as Western as any California kid and they're listening

to Kanye and dancing around and come to lunch. And then bit by bit the gatekeepers as we were progressing in the idea of going there to shoot this documentary they were closing in and all of a sudden we didn't have access to this and we weren't going to have access to that and we realized this had been a kind of bait and switch and access to that and we realized this had been a kind of bait and switch and decided not to make it so leading to the Zelensky question. So you basically okay so the thing I wanted to reflect which I'd always known but kind of kind of brought home with more force was the fact that Zelensky's prehistory was as a comedian, actor, producer, director. He was like it wasn't just a side hustle

like that was what he was. And that was the basis and the foundation for his popularity. And then, you know, with the following, not just in Ukraine, but in Russia, like he was very, very beloved and admired. And that then he kind of, when the moment came, there was this sort of sense of disillusionment post-Maidan with Poroshenko. And that specifically Poroshenko had been, I guess, anti-Russia.

In a sense, Zelensky was less hawkish against Russia. He was seen as a more of an centrist figure, not to say an accommodationist, but it was like, well, we can make peace. We don't have to have a continued conflict in the East among these supposed separatists. Anyway, there's a lot to be said about that. But what took you there initially, pre the invasion, was what? The fact that he was this mysterious one. Funny thing is that you know this this other documentary that we were going to do it was it was pretty elaborate and it had required a lot of travel and we had... For the Zelensky project? No, for the Syria project. For the Syria project. Right.

So it was kind of heavy. Well, when you say it was heavy, what do you mean? It was just a story at the heart of death. It was this kind of, you know, when you're covering something or, you know, as a documentarian, and I say this as though I've done a lot of it, I had made one. You know, were I, let's say a different kind of,

well, the kind of documentarians who I appreciate a lot, I can't do what they do. I'm not good at, I can't do what you do. Like, I'll watch you the way you are when you go into these places and these cultures. And it's extraordinary. You have your way, which is particularly interesting to watch. And so if the story doesn't go the way you want it to go, meaning I've got total freedom, then maybe I'll make it about how I don't have freedom. Maybe I'll make it about how these Scientologists are trying to tell me to get off a public road.

Right? I need the trust of the people I'm going to make it about. And I'm trustworthy. I'm not going be cynical, I'm not gonna be, but I'm going to tell, you know, you told me not in the hide so I can say what I saw, right? When it wasn't that, it's sort of like, well maybe I'm not gonna be able to get the trust for this story and then when my producing partner Billy Smith, he had met somebody that had a connection to Zelensky. And at that point

it was this whimsical story about this comedian, this comic actor turned who played a president in a successful comedy series becoming the president. And it'll be interesting to learn about Ukraine for me. And then it became this because Putin started sending these troops to the east and and you know bit by bit all of the analysts were saying this is looking like he's going to invade Ukraine. And now we had a very different documentary that we were making. But that wasn't the intention.

That wasn't what, you know, when we went into it. I would be remiss if I didn't mention the Zelensky visit, right? And that piece of political theater and how it went down. What was your characterisation of what happened when he's sitting there in front of the reporters with Trump and Vance? My first characterisation of it is it is such a sensitive moment that I want to be very careful not to mischaracterize it. The idea that you ask a head of state to come to the United States,

he makes that trip to come to the United States to meet with you on matters of life and death. And the only opportunity he has to negotiate that with you is in front of cameras, that's what you do to him. Kind of surprising surprising but not and so it's what it was what happened was correct me if I'm wrong Trump saying Well, we're gonna pursue a ceasefire and Then let's keep sort of saying well, we have to these people only understand force, right? Is that was sort of what went down well in Trump's like you haven't got a card to play. Here's a here's the thing

Nowhere I didn't see any other reporting about Zelensky's position going into that meeting other than that He needed security guarantees as one of the absolutes and and and security guarantees is a very very different thing than security assurances. And no one in that part of the world that I met, no matter what side they're on or the way they think, no one believes he's going to stop with Ukraine. None of them. High to low, it's an absolute that he would not stop with Ukraine. Mason- Meaning what? That he would then go on to do what?

Borg- Expansion, whether it's Lithuania, Moldova, Poland. This guy is hell-bent in this way. And by the way, you know, this expansionism isn't always armies going across borders, right? It can just be having a puppet president, as he once upon a time did have in Ukraine. Right. And which he does have in Chechnya, right, and Belarus, I think. Georgia. Georgia. In your documentary, Superpower, there's a brief sequence of you from like 2001, maybe,

with Nicholson, I think, in Moscow, hanging with Putin. Yeah, well, yeah. Seemingly at dinner together, but you don't say anything about it. Yeah, well, I said what I said. I said something about that what it feels like now to look back on it. It's like you want to take a shower or something. It was the Moscow Film Festival and Jack and I had a movie that we'd done together that was at the festival and the art

the creative director of the festival Nikita Michael Koff whose father had written the national anthem for Stalin. He threw a kind of festival party at his Dacha and so a lot of people went out to this thing and Putin we knew Putin was going to come and Putin arrives Jack and I are seated right where he is at a long long table and immediately to his left is the father because this is an honored Russian, right and the father, because this is an honored Russian, right? And Putin is sort of the focus of the whole table. You know, everybody's... this is about two weeks

after President Bush had met with him and said the famous thing about, you know, I looked him in the eye and trust... you know, knew I could trust him. Yeah, he was considered a kind of a reformer at this time. Yeah, yeah, he was clever about how he presented himself and I remember him being clever about how he presented himself and I would have accused myself of sharing that thought with George Bush probably at that moment. So then there's a little break in the conversation because you know this is a table of 20 people, everyone wants to be engaged with the guy that's here. He's mostly interested in talking to Jack,

talking to me a little bit. We talked about kids, things like that. You and Putin did? Yeah. Okay. I asked him how old his kids were, what are they into, and then there's a little lull, and in that little lull, the old man leans over to Putin and is whispering and

Jack sees it. Of course the whole table is immediately What's going what's that about and Jack says? He's telling him don't change the anthem. Is he pretty good with the one-liners, Jack? I'm with him in front of a pizza place one time in Westwood and there was a Bullocks next door and a very extraordinarily healthy young woman comes out of that store extraordinarily healthy and floats in her high heels by us

and without missing a beat, Jackson something about North American nutrition, Shawnee but I'm saving the best for last something about north american nutrition shani but i'm saving the best for last the best ones we were shooting in long beach after got hit fishing work going to the hotel he went to his room got a shower i got a shower and we go downstairs

to get a drink we did both happen to notice this one girl Drifting you know through the through the dance floor and As it's you know being you know attractive I could tell like well, I don't think we said anything about I think we just saw and Then I noticed that the girl was now staring at him in a very friendly way and she went up to him and she says excuse me mr. Nicholson will you like to dance and he says wrong verb yeah he's fast oh that's pretty good. You like his acting?

Hmm? Nicholson. I think he's a great, great actor. Ikuku's Nest, I don't think there's been, there's no such thing as a better performance than that in the history of film. It's one of the handful of, the greatest thing you've ever seen.

And I think that what he had at best is everything that one would love to see in a movie star and everything that everyone loved to see in an actor. He had them both going in full tilt. Yeah. So, it was so exciting to watch. There's a thing about Nicholson as well, I can't do Nicholson, but where he talks about, when he started losing his hair quite young,

and then people with full heads of hair said, Jack, you're losing your hair, and 20 years later they're all bald and I'm still losing my hair. Yeah, that's right, that's right. He just kept that hairline forever. Kind of amazing. Yeah. hairline forever. Kind of amazing. I want to, okay, who else do you like acting wise? I read that, um, that for you, uh, Robert

De Niro was maybe iconic at a time when you were coming. Oh, no question. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, he was, I remember in addition to being a devoted fan when I was, it was when I was in acting school that, well no, it was earlier than that that I started paying attention but then once I started to understand what the challenges of the job were then I really appreciated what he was doing. And it was also a respect for the work that, you know, I think it's a really noble profession if somebody who's doing it takes it as a noble profession, right? And his discipline with it, the excellence that he was demanding, was really

influential, you know, and exciting. You think some actors don't take it as a noble profession? was really influential, you know, and exciting. You think some actors don't take it as a noble profession? Oh yeah, and some of them have every right to not because they don't have, you know, some don't have very noble talents or interest in what they're doing it for. Maybe your products, whatever,

projects that they've been recruited for maybe more because it drives the algorithm, you know what I mean? Or do you think you can bring art to anything? Well, look, it took me a long time to start understand, I'm a real Luddite and so I would have been intimidated for years to try to believe I could understand how to access a streamer. The word streaming, I didn't understand it. I knew that I stopped thinking movie got over that enough where now I you know will watch things I'll even be a binge watcher on some stuff there are some things that are on television that are so excellent the actors are brilliant on the level with anything you know that came out of the great cinema of the 70s and really on that level But you're not finding it too often the movie theaters, but you can find it if you pick your spots

Anything specific so I was sort of compelled to watch Someone who's a fan of it euphoria and it's very talented and people are so dark in ways that I didn't understand what we were getting out of it. And then I watched and I got to what, it's gonna be episode five, season two. And from there to the end,

I think it would be snobby and unwise to say it's not every bit as good as Long Day's Journey and Tonight. It, there's genius stuff happening. So this stuff, I don't know how they do it. I don't know how these guys do these very long form things. It's not, you know, it's something I think I have a lot of skills to apply to it. I don't know how these guys do these very long form things. It's not, you know, it's something I think I have a lot of skills to apply to it. But the actors great and yeah so, but you know, just picking one out, there's also

this one, you know about this show Normal People? The Sally Rooney novel with Paul Meskell? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And Daisy Edgar Jones. Great Meskell? Yes. Yeah. And Daisy Edgar Jones. Great. That was terrific.

Yeah, I mean I- So simple in one way. Yeah. Simple love story. It's not like particularly pegged to now. You know what I mean? It's not like social media's a big thing in it or it's just a love story kind of between a jock

and a geek, a complicated nerd woman. I don't know, that's a bit reductive, is it? But enough about Elon Musk. Yeah, and they're both so good at it. Have you met Musk? Have you met Musk? Have you met Elon Musk? That's me driving, look behind me. There he is.

People in Radio Land were looking at a photo on the wall of Sean's man cave, human cave. So you were tight with him for a while? No, I wouldn't, no, no. I've met him on several occasions, chatted with him on some occasions. One time I went and he generously showed me a lot about their space project and talked for several hours about that. And that's about the totality of how I know him. Did you feel you got a read of him?

Here's where I put him. What the ultimate value of his existence on earth is going to be or not be, I'm not going to be alive to know, right? Cures to cancer, his role in AI, all of these things are going way bigger and faster than I can pretend to conceive. And so I just don't think about him that much as an individual. I see him more as most of a lot of destructive energy and a lot of stuff that may end up being very productive for other generations. I think you were probably not on social media that much. One theory is that he kind of got poisoned by the internet, right? Like he got

so saturated in Twitter, which became X, that he kind of almost self-brainwashed in some respect. You know, I think it's fair to say that if you are a prematurely balding teenager, white, in apartheid South Africa, who has no social skills. Not to mention the parental stuff. There's also the narcissism issue that goes through the family. But these are the guys we've got. We were talking about, you were talking about coming up, actors who give themselves completely to the work,

learning the craft. I read a quote where you said that you were looking for something that you could give yourself 100% to, right? Well, I think that we... Consecrate yourself to... I grew up in a funny time in America in the sense that we were direct lineage to people who served. Now, in that case, it was the military, right? My father in World War

II and so on. He was a pilot, right? He was an aviator. He was a gunner and a bombardier. And then we, you know, as a kid, I'm growing up and draft is a really bad word, right? So there was nothing demanding, either culturally or legally, my generation to serve anything. So I think that without that I was left to my own immature pursuits and I wanted something to connect the individual that I was and was becoming with the group need, right? And to feel like you could be part of something bigger.

And I ultimately did find that in movies in a way. You'd grown up, you were in the San Fernando Valley, and then as a child your parents moved to Malibu, right? And your dad, he'd been a director. Your mum was an actor. And reading about your upbringing, you know, you've spoke only ever lovingly and respectfully about your parents. Nevertheless, there was also a quote of yours I read where you said, I'm damaged.

And in the New Yorker profile, there was some guy, a friend of yours, who was speculating on the idea that your mom had been quite hard on you and That that that you may be carrying some of that with you. Hmm. Is there anything in that? No Here's what I'm carrying with me My mom and I were equally hard on each other. Mm-hmm never For two days in a row People loved her and they feared her. She was unfiltered, opinionated, it was like that. You know, if anything, she was the first one that just thought her kids did everything great, right? So she wasn't

like hard on me in that sense that I hear from kids. I was very lucky that way, very encouraging parents. But my mother... But hang on, I got to... Because there's a whole quote about how when you did your first performance... Well, this is... But see, I always appreciated that about her because if it wasn't meaning... If it was meaningful, it usually is because I agreed with her on something that she suggested. When I didn't agree with her, I was able to be what my friends were, which is kind of, as long as they were 10 feet away, they thought she was a character, really.

In fact, my older brother and I, and we felt that my mother would have loved this, but we understand that a gravestone is an appreciation that is shared by friends and relatives at large. We wanted to put, you know, mother, wife, all that stuff that we wanted this gravestone to say, a piece of work. Because she was, she was, so yes, when I was, I did my first play, her first words after the show, that was terrible. And then told me I really have to go to college and have something to fall back on.

But you appreciated that. Yeah, because of the other ways my parents Clearly had allowed me to have a real sense of confidence and I just thought well, she's wrong You know I've had over the years I've I've done a fair amount of time sitting across from a shrink and For the first let me say sitting across from a shrink. And for the first, let me say, 20 years of such opportunities, it was always compulsory, either by a court or by a wife or something like that. And I just didn't see the value in it. And I always felt smarter than the person I was talking to. And then later in life, I found some very intelligent

people that were helpful in certain things that I was dealing with and so on. And so I went back through it and I realized that one of the things that's baffled most of them, they've all looked for, it's a big thing, this trauma thing, right? In fact, I would say that similar, like the Me Too movement, you know, it was the Me Too industry. The actual things are very real things. And so we attach trauma to too many things, I think,

and should save them for the ones that really are there. But anyway, they were always looking for trauma in my childhood. And they even define it by capital T and little t. And there's just nothing attached to my parents like that now do have I had trauma yeah I made it all myself after the age of 21 the trouble that you've got into specifically it felt like in this is going back 80 in the 80s with you know, you had a reputation for punching Photographers that became the sort of the tabloid shorthand for a bit

They were there for the ones that were photographers with cameras. So those were recorded It wasn't just photographers. There was I want to dig one up This might there was a few good profiles of you. The Rolling Stone one was pretty funny. I was from 96 good profiles of you, the Rolling Stone one was pretty funny, that was from 96. Penn has had his share of run-ins with the police. In Macau in 1986, during the shooting of Shanghai Surprise, he was arrested for helping to deter and intruding paparazzo by hanging him by his ankles from the ninth floor balcony of his hotel room. Penn subsequently broke out of the jail where he was being held on the charges of attempted

murder and escaped the country by jet foil. Yeah, did not hang him by his ankles. We were not going to throw him over the balcony. We wanted to stop what was happening. Initially, we didn't know it was camera that he was holding. He jumped out and he was in a corridor. There were two security guys walking myself and a friend of mine up in through this hotel. We were ahead of them and here was a door here and they had presentationally the hotel had two doors to this room they were giving me. Very nice room. But we're walking and there was a door just opposite that and just as I'm starting to see this open door somebody jumps out and they have something so we did both grab him and we charged him right

through the room to the balcony that was also presentationally open it was very conveniently a beeline and cutting him off here Bidding him over and and by that time I had seen Let's say within the first second and a half. I noticed it was a camera. I was actually telling this other guy You know, it's just it's a camera. It's a camera like like we should let him go But we never had a chance to pull him back before the security guys came and pulled us back a chance to pull him back before the security guys came and pulled us back. So they said that it was attempted murder. So they put us in literally Barney Fife's jail. I'm looking around this cell thinking, okay, wait, is there anybody out there?

There were people that knew we were there because I was working on a thing. But that could be ours. Do I get a phone call? Do I get anything then we noticed that when they left they only had one guy you know like if you go to a village on a Sunday anywhere in the world and there's a little police huddle you know it's there's one guy right and Right? And this guy was not youthful. And the knob that locks the gate, I could see it actually had grinder facing. At some point, they lost a key or something and they ground through it,

meaning it was open. All you had to do is give it a little push. And we knew because it wasn't far to this hotel. It was just one road that had taken us from the jet foil launch to the hotel in the first place. So even though we were brand, I mean, I just stepped foot in Macau, I didn't know anything, but I knew how to get to the jet foil. So we just bolted. And then we went to the Kowloons when we got to Hong Kong.

Did the cop not come after you? Didn't look back. We just bolted and ran straight to the jet foil and they would leave. What is a jet foil? It's those like float boats that take you back and forth to Hong Kong. It was Shanghai Surprise. We said that. You were in it with Madonna, right? We have to because that might have been my greatest crime. The one they didn't get. The movie itself. But it will damage you. It got terrible

reviews didn't it? It deserved worse. So and then ultimately it was the gangsters that negotiated the thing. I don't think anybody in government had anything to say about it. What was your most serious case that you caught over the years? Well that would have been if it had gone on... Right, attempted murder. You did 33 days in jail? 34, yeah. It was a 60-day sentence, and you'd get a good day for a good day, and if you have any

infractions that's another day. So I had four infractions over the 30 days, and I got 34 days. But let's see, I guess, you know, just dumb fights and things like that. Was that for punching a photographer No, it was it was actually yes. No, it was it was a bad. It was a bad month. I I was on a movie set and I got into a scuffle with an extra now that case I was

likely to beat because he had some damage but he was big and I was not and... What was it over? He was secretly taking pictures in the frame while we're in the middle of a take and I went to interact with him. It got nasty and then it became something else and I went out to dinner the night before I'm going before the judge and I

got into a fight and I used a chair I There's no excuse for this. I mean I hit him and he He he went down. I grabbed the chair and when I grabbed the chair and hit him again when he was down, that was assault with a deadly weapon. So that's the worst charge. And so guess what? Same judge. So now we said, okay, I'm going to jail. I know, I know, I I know so we just had to make the best deal we could and that was 60 days and cut it down 34. Did you just, and kind of misplaced sense of how that works. But you know, I never deserved to hit anybody, but a lot of the guys that got hit deserved

to get hit. I did feel that. And by the way, I have to make it very clear. Even then, I lost a lot more of these engagements than I was successful in. Successful to the point of going to jail. And I also, you know, I do think that the average person would see it a little differently. This is again not excusing anything, but take the, like with the paparazzi for example, you know, if you take the camera out of their hand and you just close your eyes and you just think of... pick a person that you can imagine that you don't want in your life and they follow

you everywhere and they're looking through your windows at your house all day every day and the police won't do anything about it, can't do anything about it because they're on public property and God forbid you're on public property. What do you do? Well, I mean at some point I might kill them. I'll do anything to stop it. So I did feel a little of that at that time. You know, I'm not going to live life this way with this person attached to me. I bet it didn't help though, did it? It's not like, oh, would they? Would they give you a wider berth once it was clear that you might combust?

I think it probably added bad, bad shit to the culture. By doing that, it gave them more, you know, added to the idea you can go provoke people like this idiot. And that was the narrative. Sean Penn explodes at the paparazzi again today. Yeah, you know, I mean, I'm probably partially responsible for this explosion that led to all this extreme creepy fascination with famous people and things like that. And so, yeah, no, it didn't get doing, no good came of it for sure. Do you think you were slightly caught in the backwash of the obsession with Madonna as well?

That's part of it, right? Oh, well, that's most of what got the amount of attention that was happening. I mean, my life was much simpler before that, but when we met, she had never gone on tour. You know, she was at the beginning of the whole thing. Would it be 82? Like A Virgin was 83, I think. The song had come out in the video, so she was, but it wasn't like it got,

but she became a lightning rod of attention, and I was there. How did you meet? but she became a lightning rod of attention and and I was there. How did you meet a? Friend of mine was a PA on a Music video she was doing like four blocks away from where I was staying in town at that time. I was staying at a friend's house Developing a movie and we would work on the script during the day and I got up and and and and then we'd have lunch because it like MTV was a big thing at that time. You put on MTV and so I was familiar with

her from that and then this friend of mine's down the street making another video that she's doing and says oh Come down Madonna wants to meet you Yeah, and then I don't want and then yeah, so we met there You just you just Skipped a track. Well, the only thing I you know, I I don't like like, you know If I have a cute story to tell about somebody I'm still telling a story they they don't here to permit me to tell you know I don't it because it becomes kiss and tell after that I don't want to go there

yeah did you see the documentary they made about her oh yeah yeah yeah yeah I know about that yep and then they ask her, who's the love of your life? You remember that? Yeah, I remember that. You remember what she said? I do, I remember what she said. She's very sweet. Look, she's been a good friend for a lot of years.

It didn't take us long to realize that we had mistaken a good first date for a wedding partner. And it didn't take us long to recover after we got divorced. Maybe a year. In friendship, you know. I have a lot of fond memories of it. It's not all jail and there's a lot of alcohol. She'd be fairly accusing me of that. How's your energy? You okay to keep going a little bit?

My energy's fine. Okay, great. I feel like we've slightly, we've got Zelensky somewhat on pause, but I also wanted to ask about, I mean, there's a lot of things to touch on, but El Chapo, notorious, what do they call them? Narco, what do they call them? Narco traffickers. Narco trafficker. El Chapo Guzman. Kingpin. And you spent some face time with him. I looked at the interview, it's still on, there's a video of an interview with him on YouTube.

Yeah, that's I guess part of it, right? So I had hoped to do an interview with him. That's what I went there to do. The Rolling Stone. Yeah. I have to counter some of the criticisms that came. Now, it is true that I am verbose with these pieces. They're long.

If you don't like the writing style, it's long and you don't like it. But an example would be that we thought we were outsmarting people, you know, to be able to go down there without being known or anything. I had said in the article, and I always thought that no matter what we did, and we were using burner phones and everything, you know, I'm talking about a little group that was going to go, you know, there's a trail on this stuff. If, you know, when it comes to that guy, even if you want to make the argument that for whatever nefarious reasons, governments were

not wanting to grab him at given times, they sure as hell wanted to know where he was and who was talking to him and why. So we should say that he was on the lam, right? He'd escaped from even apprehended having been the head of a cartel. Which cartel was it? Sinelua. And then they got him and then he was sprung from jail. So by the time you catch up with him, he's an escapee living in a hideout somewhere, right?

He was living out in the jungle, yeah. The shit that those cartels got up to was unreal, right? I mean, the level of almost pornographic violence. Decapitations. I wouldn't use the word almost. Yeah. Yeah. Horrific acts of terroristic violence, mass beheadings. And what was your curiosity about him? What was the, what was your, what was leading you to want to make if I had an agenda it would have been to try to understand how do you get this way and how what's the solution here is there one there not been a lot of not been a lot of front page news about these problems and I do

understand that because I understand Mexico's reaction you know when I went to this thing that happened when I went down there because having worked in Haiti, you do understand the incredible importance of foreign investment. And of course, Mexico had figured out how to not have all the focus be on that at that time, you know, because they're trying to represent security for businesses that are coming in. Okay, I get that. But I also noticed that this situation isn't changing, it's getting worse. And so I had a fluke thing happen that I knew somebody that could get me with him. I said I wanted to do that and these other people

wanted to make a movie about it. I didn't want to do that. So I was gonna write this piece for Rolling Stone with hopes of an interview, but there wasn't an interview. What happened is I went down, takes us forever to get there. And there he is. And it was kind of later at night, and they had set up like a picnic table

and put some string lights up, had some local peasants cooking some food, and we sat and ate and drank and talked. And it went on for about eight hours. Most of the conversation I had with him was I was being asked to chime in about their movie idea. Because he wasn't very interested in me. He was interested in this woman that was with us.

A director? No, no, she was an actress. she was going to take advantage of this opportunity to make a movie about him. So all of this was what was kind of in the mix. And tell him what I wanted to do. He said, I just met you. I don't know you. Any signs of recognition of you?

No, he'd been told who I was. I think he'd gone along with anything she wanted to do. And so she vouched for me, but I didn't know in what ways. So ultimately the girl finally got him to go on tape. He answered some of the questions a little bit he answers all of them very blandly but most of them he didn't answer okay and the ones on the video he answers but yeah because they've decided which ones he's gonna okay something it's just he and one of his guys. The questions are pretty good. Well, it became a story of, okay, this is the supply side now, whatever, and so on. That was the whole deal. That's what it was.

I don't want to take up too much of your time. Maybe it's worth circling back because one you know, one of the striking things is, you know, you're a gifted actor, you've been referred to numerous times as maybe the most gifted actor of your generation. Just going to let that sink in. John McAllister In American English speaking movies, that's sometimes said about me as long as some others. It's been appreciated. Mason Hocker Who else is up there with you? John McAllister It's been appreciated, sure. Who would you regard as your peers at that level?

You started out in TAPS, Tom Cruise. Do you keep up with Tom? I don't keep up with him, but I have a very friendly relationship with him when I see him. Does he ever talk to you about Scientology? No, uh-uh, never has, no. You're not supposed to. You're supposed to, it's a, it's an axiom that you don't really preach it. You like, you say like, oh, you should read the books.

Yeah, I have a sense that those who go through that celebrity center have a very different experience with Scientology than the rank and file. I think that's true. I think it's pretty nice. It's like flying first class. It's hard to go back. And maybe you haven't seen outside that bubble. But about Tom Cruise, when we're talking about acting, like he is a guy who pursues excellence on a very high level. Now, I understand, you know, certain kinds of movies, people appreciate more than other kinds of movies and this and this, you know, there's but this is a very good actor who's also an extraordinarily

Committed craftsman Those those movies don't get made on that level whether you love them or they're not your cup of tea They don't get made on that level without somebody extraordinary behind and he's he's the common link between too many of them for it not to be him. It's not an accident. It's no accident. Yeah. But he did- He's probably, everyone talks, he does his own stunts. He does his own stunts. He's probably the best stunt man in movie world. He's probably, you know, when it comes to the amount of skills he has and what he can do with them, and maybe the most experienced in

things because they're choreographing things for him to do that nobody's ever been able to afford to put another stuntman to the test on. So he's probably advanced the whole, you know, that whole thing. He's pretty amazing. Yeah, apologies to the stunt people out there listening for Sean saying that Tom Cruise is better than all of you. I would like to think they probably celebrate a guy like that. He, you know, just makes the whole genre that is the most demanding of those skills, you know, create more jobs. I'm sure he's had some very good training from exceptional stunt people as well.

But you know, this whole thing about like the best actors in the world and although it's, like I was saying earlier, I think I'm seeing the, or who do I consider a peer? I am seeing performances, some young actors, where I feel like I should quit and become an accountant. They're so good. You know, and... Go on, who?

Chalamet? I haven't seen that movie yet. Which one? There's so many. Wonka? I actually haven't seen his movies yet. The Dylan one? No, I haven't seen it yet.

You're speaking as the voice of Bob Dylan because you read his audiobook, didn't you? I think I'm about to do the second one actually. What is it? Has he got a new one out? Yeah, Chronicles 2. Have you read it? No, I wait until I record it. Really? Yeah. I'd like to. It's such a good book, right? The first one. I loved it. I think it's terrific. Yeah. I read it. I didn't listen to you. Maybe I should listen to your version. Well, you already know the material, so I don't think you can move on. There's other things to do. But Warren Beatty speaks about this very much smarter

than I can, but there's no really such thing as a movie star anymore. That's kinda, it's just this gigantic library. Here, I'll give you an example. Game of Thrones. Of course I know about Game of Thrones. I know it was a huge success. It was huge, so they tell me. I just give you an example. Game of Thrones. Of course I know about Game of Thrones. I know it was huge success. It was huge, so they tell me.

I just didn't see it. And me neither. So you go- Who needs to see this? It's like dragons. I don't- We will wench on the morrow. It's not me.

Come on. But meanwhile, I was at a function and some people from Game of Thrones there and it's like Beatlemania. From that, now that's a very big section of the library because that's's a big, big successful thing, but it's still, it's like people are hanging out in their sections of the library, whereas we all used to be in the same library and see what was special to everybody. And you know, I have a romantic memory of that. It's moved on since then. There won't be, you know, you're not going to have a Warren Beatty, right? It doesn't, it's not going to happen.

That's old man talk, I think. I'm an old man now, so that's okay. I think for the youngsters, Shalameh is their Beatty. May Shalameh be your Beatty is an old Irish blessing. I think here's the thing is I saw an interview with him and he said that the only thing he knew about Bob Dylan was that he was an American icon before he did this thing, which made me think, well of course that actually makes some sense. You know, you're a young person, there's all this information coming at you from everywhere. And all I really know about him is he's an American icon, Timothy Chalome, right? I don't, I don't know.

I don't have the relationship to it like a movie star, which you're probably right. It's probably an old man's conversation that also probably has to do with a certain level of reclusiveness that has me living 23 and a half hours a day in this room. So, yeah. DiCaprio? Oh, well, that's before they stopped the movie star. I think the movie star manufacturer ran out around Jennifer Lawrence time or something. She was the last?

She was probably the last movie star, yeah. Woody Allen? Woody Allen, yes, and about Woody Allen. She probably the last movie star. Woody Allen. Woody Allen is and about Woody Allen. You made a great movie with him. Samantha Morton was the female lead. Friend of the pod. She's very talented. Would you work with him again? Do you think he's got a bad rap? I'd work with him in a heartbeat. Yeah. If it was the right thing, it was the right thing. Do I think he has a bad rap? Look, with these things, I don't know anyone well enough to say 100% this didn't happen, that didn't happen or something. Now, and God forbid you're wrong and there's a victim involved in something, right? But boy, I find the stuff that I know about and I

haven't, you know, read everything, the stories are mostly told by people that I wouldn't trust with a dime. It just seems so heavily weighted in that way. You're talking generally, right, or not specifically about Woody Allen? About the Woody Allen situation. It was mainly his estranged daughter? Well, yes, daughter, but also son. Ronan Farrow the journalist.

Well, you gave him that title, not me. But yes, Ronan Farrow. Well, was that a little... Just clarification. I think he's quite respected. Right for the New Yorker. And I understand that. But look, okay, let's put it this way.

I am not aware and maybe I'm just an ignoramus, that's a possibility. I am not aware of any clinical psychologist or psychiatrist or anyone I've ever heard talk or spoken to around the subject of pedophilia, that in an 80 years of life there's accusations of it happening only once. I'm not aware of that. And when people try to associate what were his, let's say, much younger girlfriends, you know, right or wrong is not the conversation here, but post puberty consensual stuff is to me a different conversation. And it has its, you know,

age of consent. We should, yeah. All of those, an adult woman, you know? Yeah. And so I just think that whatever is the worst of people's suspicions about him, you know, just check them with the facts separate from him, you know, just check him with the facts separate from the moment and the movement and all who benefited from that. Like just let's just take a second, that's all I'm saying. But I don't, I, you know, I see he's not proven guilty so I take him as innocence and I would work with him in a heartbeat. Do you fall out of... I'm trying to kind of get it if there's a unified field theory of Sean Penn and his work, right? Acting, directing, writing, but also

humanitarianism, fundraising, advocacy, documentary work. It's hard to really wrap your arms around the whole of it, you know, in a sense. What I do sense is that one feeds the other and that from time to time, you need to stop acting. Either you fall out of love with it or you need to touch grass. How would you put it? There was a period of time where I was really

miserable acting. Maybe I could say from after Milk and before Daddio. So that's like 15 years that it was just miserable and it took me a long time to identify why. Because I'd like to think it was just this project or that producer, that problem thing, or these. But I found myself sometimes working with really good people and still being miserable. And so I just thought maybe I shouldn't do this anymore

if I can afford it. this anymore if I can afford it. And then I'll do a job that pays a lot here or there and not put too much of my life into that now. And also getting older you sort of feel like you're allowed to retire sort of if you want. Rupert Spira But your thing about when you – Milk, obviously terrific movie, you won an Oscar for it. retire sort of if you want. But your thing about when you milk obviously terrific movie you won an Oscar for it but then when you you talk about falling out of love with it what did you figure out what it was was it taking too much out

of you like is it that it's emotionally draining or you felt you're on autopilot or something else? It just wasn't I wasn't being in other words, just because something is smart and populated well by cast and crew, doesn't mean you should do it. I knew this in some way intellectually before, but I really came to understand now that it's got to be something that I am really immediately engaged in. Like, is part of my world today, what my questions are, what my... I need it to be like directing has been for me, where it... Of course, the script is exactly what I'm interested in right now. I wrote it right now, so that's why I want to do it.

As an actor, you don't have as many opportunities where something comes to you like those two movies I just got gifted with. Like in both cases they were very present subjects in my imagination. And so if I'm not doing that, my dream day, I get up five o'clock in the morning maybe. I get my coffee, feed the dogs, and I start a wood project. And I'll go till one o'clock in the morning and then do it all again. Carpentry? Yeah.

Do you still drink? Yeah, yeah, I love it. Do you? Yeah. On weeknights? Does that include Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday? Yeah. What's your triple of choice?

Vodka tonic. It's all I drink. If you take me to a wedding and the bride is begging me to have a glass of champagne, I'll say I'll drink with you, but not that. It just makes life simpler. I know what I drink. I know the effect it has. I know what my pace is.

And I'm good. On the odd night, I'll do a whiskey, but it's pretty much, but don't tell the bride. Like you say, then they say, well you do the whiskey you can do the champagne. No, I don't like the peer pressure of, you know, I have one, hey have a shot of tequila. Never. Never? No. I always say it's a delivery system for ice because I'm a big ice chewer. You probably see the smoking. In fact, the only reason I'm smoking so much is because this is even worse to be like doing in

front of a camera. I see. I like to chew ice and ice tastes great when it's glazed in vodka and tonic. The smoking hasn't caught up with you. The smoking hasn't caught up with you. Well, look, I was beating the shit out of myself about smoking at a certain point. I just, it's like, God, I quit. I can't be a slave to this thing anymore. And, you know, it's bad for you. It's going to do this and that. But I would always have that calculation that finally really landed for you, it's gonna do this and that. But I would always have that calculation that finally really landed for me, which is that notwithstanding heart disease,

save that for the next time, cancer. Is that it takes nitro and glycerin to make cancer. And so that could be any of these carcinogens or whatever is one of the other one that's consistent is stress. I was rereading some Bukowski about two years ago and I found this this line it's a pretty famous line of his but I hadn't thought of it for a long long time and never related it this way and it's find something you love and let it kill you and you know I know that they're not good for you but I don't have stress about it and I love it I love smoking and I'm not saying has no effect on

somebody else you know your kids are worried about you because you smoke that's an effect on somebody, you know, but I If if booze isn't making me want to go out and punch somebody which it doesn't anymore Or if I'm not Inclined to get behind the wheel of a car or to Carry a loaded firearm when I'm drinking then well I'm not doing any you know I feel fine about it. I mean I could keep going but how long have we gone for? Quite a while right? I feel like um...

I'm sorry that I go on I know I go on a lot of tangents. No, no, the tangents are part of what's fun. I'm back. Thank you for listening or watching. That was a lot of fun. What a thrill to go up into the mountaintop, well hilltop, redoubt of a Hollywood acting legend. I felt very privileged and I felt like we could have gone for another couple of hours, crack open some of the ambers, right, kick back and just what happens happens, right? What happens at Sean Penn's house stays at Sean Penn's house. That's one of our mottos. The upcoming film, which we talked about, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean,

is one battle after another. It's due out later this year. And just to say, I don't smoke. I've had a few cigarettes in my life. It was quite nice to be around smoking again. I think he normally doesn't smoke that much, but that he likes to have something to fiddle with. And normally he uses toothpicks. This is what he told me at the end of the conversation. But since he couldn't use toothpicks, I think because maybe it was a sound issue or it was some issue. He didn't want to be on camera. That's Millie, my producer. Welcome to the chat. He didn't want to be on camera picking his teeth, so he smoked a bit more than usual. Regular listeners will notice I've had, well, I had another pop at Game of Thrones which came out last week with Bella Ramsey.

I'm dialing up the feud. George RR Martin you're on notice. Things no one ever said. We need Tolkien but with more sex. Right. Who said that? No one ever. I do like Merlin.

You ever seen Merlin? That's on iPlayer. That's a nice program. Nice. Is that my new brand? Why can't things be more nice? Merlin, which has Bradley James, Colin Morgan and others, it was about 10 years ago. You can watch that with the whole family. There's no wenching in that. There's no wenching like, come on, on the morrow we will wench. And they don't talk fake medieval English either. They just say things like, hi Merlin, are you feeling all right? They just say it normal. They didn't speak like in weird medieval English. In medieval times they spoke Middle English, which was actually a different language. Juan de Aprella with his surezoota. Yes, I do speak a little Middle English.

I've got parts of Chaucer memorized. Did you know that? How much do you want me to do? Bit more. Juanat aprilla with his sure esota. The draught of March hath perced to the rota, and barred every vine in switch licure. I can go way longer than you might think.

Of which vertu engended is the fluor, Juan Zephyrus echo with a suet apreth. Can George R. R. Martin do that? If you were playing bingo at home, you can check off Woody Allen, also Trump. You can't put in, well, Mel Gibson, he should probably be on the bingo card. Blacking Up wasn't on there. It's a shame we didn't bring up I Am Sam, which was when Sean played someone with a

significant disability, because that's a bit like Blacking Up in a way, in the sense that it's actors taking on attributes that they don't have, and which you could say is acting, but all of this has become very contentious. And I don't know that you'd, I don't know, I think this question's being asked now about how appropriate it is to play someone with a disability. Playing a gay man in milk. And as Millie points out, playing a gay man in milk. And playing a milk man in gay.

Not many people saw that. The people were offended that someone with no experience in the lactation business was taking on the role of a milkman. Why it was called Gay is a strange question. It was the name of the milkman, Marvin Gay. That's good stuff. Okay, I think that's it. Oh yes, credits. The producer was Millie Chu. The assistant producer was Maisie Williams. The production manager was Francesca Bassett.

And the executive producer was Aaron Fellows. The music in this series was by Miguel de Oliveira. This is a MINDHAUS production for Spotify.