Sean Penn, with Daughter Dylan, Directs again in 'Flag Day'

Sean Penn, left, and Dylan Penn pose for portrait photographs for the film 'Flag Day', at the 74th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Saturday, July 10, 2021. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)
Sean Penn, left, and Dylan Penn pose for portrait photographs for the film 'Flag Day', at the 74th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Saturday, July 10, 2021. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)
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Sean Penn, with Daughter Dylan, Directs again in 'Flag Day'

Sean Penn, left, and Dylan Penn pose for portrait photographs for the film 'Flag Day', at the 74th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Saturday, July 10, 2021. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)
Sean Penn, left, and Dylan Penn pose for portrait photographs for the film 'Flag Day', at the 74th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Saturday, July 10, 2021. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)

Sean Penn is sort of done with movies.

He’s still making them, here and there. But Penn is mostly seeing out commitments he made years earlier. After those? He’s not so sure how much more he’s going to be acting or directing.

Penn, the 61-year-old maverick actor and sometimes filmmaker, is in many ways happily out of step with many of the prevailing winds in Hollywood. Streaming films? Franchise movies? So-called “cancel culture?” All of these things draw his ire, to various degrees. Meanwhile, Penn is dedicating more of his time to Haitian relief efforts and getting people vaccinated than he does to movies, reported The Associated Press.

All of that makes “Flag Day,” a new film Penn directed and co-stars in, a rarity for a once voracious actor who in the past decade has been a co-lead in only a few movies (“The Professor and the Madman,” “Gangster Squad”). In the father-daughter drama, which MGM will release Friday in theaters, Penn plays a larger-than-life but often absent and sometimes imprisoned father to daughter Jennifer (played by Penn's daughter Dylan Penn).

“I’m currently feeling with this movie incredibly lucky to have a movie that’s going to be a movie, that’s going to have a theatrical front,” Penn said in an interview last month. “I, as an audience, can be very into some of the things that are only streaming. But as a practitioner, not at all. To act in something, you take it in a certain stride. But as a director, the way I’ve always put it is: It’s not the girl I fell in love with.”

And Penn increasingly sounds like someone for whom the romance of movies has faded. He misses Hollywood films that aren’t “just razzle-dazzle, Cirque du Soleil movies,” he says. On Marvel movies, he laments “how much it’s taken up the space and claimed so much time in the careers of so many talented people.” Arguing that today he wouldn’t be allowed to play gay icon Harvey Milk (2008’s “Milk”), Penn recently said that soon only Danish princes will be playing Hamlet.

And Penn’s generally well-regarded directing career (including 1995’s “The Crossing Guard” and 2001’s “The Pledge,” both with Jack Nicholson; and 2007's “Into the Wild”) has lately been rockier. His last film, 2016’s “The Last Face,” with Charlize Theron, flopped, and was loudly booed at its Cannes Film Festival debut. Yet Penn last month returned to Cannes to premiere “Flag Day.”
“I’ve been on such extreme ends on that. It’s like: whatever,” says Penn. “The thing is: I am confident that I know as much — more — about acting than almost any of these critics. And I’m very confident in the performance I’m most concerned about.”

With that, Penn raises his hand and points toward where Dylan is sitting across an otherwise empty hotel bar off Cannes' Croisette. Dylan, 30, is the star of “Flag Day.” She has dabbled before in acting but it’s easily her biggest role yet. In the film, adapted from Jennifer Vogel’s 2005 memoir “Flim-Flam Man: The True Story of My Father’s Counterfeit Life,” she plays an aspiring journalist with a seldom truthful father.

Penn's confidence isn’t misplaced. In “Flag Day,” Dylan is natural, poised and captivating. She looks a veteran, already, which might be expected of the child of Penn and Robin Wright. And those critics? Some have been quite complimentary. Variety said the film “reveals Dylan Penn to be a major actor.”

Just as Penn is withdrawing from movies, his daughter is stepping forward — even if she didn’t immediately seek the spotlight.

“Growing up, being surrounded by actors and being on set, it was really something that didn’t interest me at all,” Dylan says. “I always thought, and still think, my passion lies in working behind the camera. But as soon as I expressed wanting to do that kind of thing, both of my parents said separately: You won’t be a good director if you don’t know what it’s like to be in the actor’s shoes.”

Dylan grants that her dad may be “passing the torch a little bit.” Hopper Jack Penn, her younger brother, also co-stars in “Flag Day.” (The rest of the cast includes Josh Brolin and Regina King. Original songs by Cat Power, Eddie Vedder and Glen Hansard contribute to the score.)

“I have always thought if she wanted to do it, I’d encourage it,” Penn says.

For Dylan, the father-daughter relationship of “Flag Day” — Jennifer tries to help and stabilize her scamming father but also inherits some of his more destructive, conman habits — is a half-reflection of their own bond together.

“She always strived to have this really honest, transparent relationship with her father which she never got it in return,” Dylan says. “I’ve tried to have that with my dad and got it in return.”

Penn has recently been shooting Sam Esmail’s Watergate series for Starz, with Julia Roberts. He's been vocal that vaccinations ought to be required for everyone on set. During the pandemic, Penn's Community Organized Relief Effort non-profit, which he started after the 2010 earthquake to help Haitians, erected testing and vaccination sites, helping dispense millions of shots.

Perhaps those experiences have made Penn only further repelled by anything artificial.

"My tolerance for the contrived is less and less," says Penn.

But working with Dylan came naturally. Talking about her attentive, even disarming presence, he calls her “as uncontrived as it gets.

“I would be sort of taken about by it sometimes, like: ‘Uh, oh. She’s really listening to this. Is she seeing right through this?’" says Penn.
Penn started out younger — he was starring in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” by the time he was 21. He felt confident from the start in roles that were like him — “young and very shy," as he describes. Staying natural while expanding away from himself, Penn says, has been the journey ever since.
“How do you feel as natural, as free in something where you’re going to the role as in something where you’re bringing the role to you? To varying degrees of success and failure, that’s what the road has been — to find that original unquestioning,” says Penn. “There’s stuff that I see in Dylan that is so unquestioning.”



Think You Know 'Jaws'? Test Your Knowledge with this Trivia Ahead of the Movie's 50th Anniversary

This image released by Peacock shows Roy Scheider in a scene from "Jaws." (Peacock/Universal Pictures via AP)
This image released by Peacock shows Roy Scheider in a scene from "Jaws." (Peacock/Universal Pictures via AP)
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Think You Know 'Jaws'? Test Your Knowledge with this Trivia Ahead of the Movie's 50th Anniversary

This image released by Peacock shows Roy Scheider in a scene from "Jaws." (Peacock/Universal Pictures via AP)
This image released by Peacock shows Roy Scheider in a scene from "Jaws." (Peacock/Universal Pictures via AP)

Friday marks the 50th anniversary of “Jaws.” It remains one of the most beloved and rewatched movies of all time. But how good is your knowledge of the some of lore surrounding Steven Spielberg's 1975 masterpiece?

Read on and see how much you know about “Jaws.”

What was the nickname given to the shark? Spielberg named his mechanical shark “Bruce,” after his attorney, Bruce Ramer.

Where did the title come from? When author Peter Benchley’s 1974 book was going to print, he needed to choose a title. He has juggled various titles — “Leviathan Rising,” “Silent Fall” — before, at the last minute, choosing “Jaws.”

What did it mean? Benchley, himself, wasn’t sure, he told his editor, but it was short.

What's the origin of the iconic movie poster? The image of the rising shark came from the cover of the novel’s paperback edition, illustrated by Roger Kastel. For his painting, Kastel went to the American Museum of Natural History to photograph a great white shark from a diorama that was laying on an easel.

What was the inspiration for Amity? Though Spielberg shot “Jaws” on Martha’s Vineyard, off Cape Cod, it was the neighboring island, Nantucket, that inspired Benchley’s novel. He has spent time fishing there with his father. In the book, the fictional Amity is on the south shore of Long Island.

Who was first attached to direct “Jaws”? Dick Richards was initially in line to direct the film, but producer Richard D. Zanuck said he lost the job after, in a meeting, repeatedly referring to the shark as a whale.

How old was Spielberg when he began the project? 26.

Who sought but was turned down the role of Brody? Charlton Heston wanted to play the Amity Island police chief, but Spielberg instead cast Roy Scheider.
What’s the name of Quint’s boat? The Orca. Not coincidentally, two years after the massive success of “Jaws,” a 1977 ripoff about a killer whale was released titled “Orca.”

What led to the shark often malfunctioning? Salt water. The shark, built by special effects artist Bob Mattey, would get corroded by the salt water of the Atlantic Ocean, leaving it unusable for times – particularly early in the filmmaking. Spielberg pivoted and instead doesn’t show the shark until well into the film, an approach that ultimately led to a far more suspenseful film.

Spielberg once estimated that Bruce’s mechanical delays added $175 million to the movie’s box office.

How long into “Jaws” does the shark fully appear on screen? It’s not until one hour and 21 minutes into the movie that we really see the shark.

Was the movie’s most iconic line scripted? No, Schieder adlibbed “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” Screenwriter Carl Gottlieb, though, has said the line had been percolating on set. The size of the barge carrying equipment and craft services was often slighted by the crew who felt producers weren’t spending enough. Gottlieb told The Hollywood Reporter in 2016: “It became a catchphrase for any time anything went wrong – if lunch was late or the swells were rocking the camera, someone would say, ‘You’re gonna need a bigger boat.’”

What disaster was Quint a survivor of? The sinking of the USS Indianapolis, the US Navy cruiser torpedoed by a Japanese submarine during World War II.

Quint’s lengthy and memorably speech in the film wasn’t in the novel but was, according to Spielberg, penned by the uncredited screenwriter John Milius.

Spielberg wanted a backstory to why Quint hated sharks so much. Though debate has continued over the years over who wrote the monologue, everyone has agreed Shaw synthesized it, and deserves most of the credit for the scene’s power.

Does Spielberg appear in “Jaws?” The director isn’t seen in the film but his voice is heard. During the finale of the film when Quint is readying the harpoon, it’s Spielberg’s voice on the radio. He says: “This is Amity point light-station to Orca. Orca, come in.” Spielberg shows up in a couple other ways, too. A clarinetist in high school, he plays briefly on Williams’ score. And Brody’s dogs were Spielberg’s cocker spaniels, Elmer and Zalman. (For his part, Benchley makes a cameo as a TV reporter during the July 4th beach scene.)

How far over schedule did “Jaws” run? The production was scheduled for 55 days but took 159 days to complete. The budget also nearly tripled, to $9 million, plus $3 million more in post-production. Though “Jaws” become the prototype summer movie, it was originally expected to open around Christmastime the year before.

What was “Jaws” rated? Though it caused some controversy, the Motion Picture Association of America gave “Jaws” a “PG” rating. At the time, there was no PG-13 rating. (That only began in 1984, with “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” after a handful of other Spielberg productions, including “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Gremlins” led to the new category.) Jack Valenti, then-president of the MPAA, defended the rating by arguing that “‘Jaws’ involved nature’s violence, rather than man’s violence against man,” Valenti said. “This is the same kind of violence as in ‘Hansel and Gretel.’ Children might imitate other kinds of violence, but not the kind seen in ‘Jaws.’”

The movie’s poster carried the warning: “MAY BE TOO INTENSE FOR YOUNGER CHILDREN.”

What did “Jaws” lose best picture to at the Academy Awards? “Jaws” was nominated for four Oscars and won three: best sound, best editing and best score for John Williams. The competition for best picture, though, was fierce.

The nominees, alongside “Jaws,” where “Dog Day Afternoon,” “Barry Lyndon,” “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Nashville.” The winner was “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”