Sean Penn Embraces Action with The Gunman

Sean Penn stars as a former Special Forces soldier in 'The Gunman,' the actor's first action role.(Photo: StudioCanal)

Story Highlights

• Sean Penn takes on his first action role in his 30-year career
• He plays a former Special Forces soldier who is dragged back into the business
• The film, directed by Pierre Morel, also stars Javier Bardem, Idris Elba and Ray Winstone

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Sean Penn is ready to rumble. The two-time Oscar winner has emerged in fighting form to star in The Gunman, the first action film in his 30-year career.

"I've been telling Sean to make a movie like this for years,'' says Joel Silver, who is producing the film (no release date yet) with Penn and Andrew Rona. "Sean just thought it was time."

Penn, 52, has a slightly different view of his co-producer's terminology when he talks about The Gunman, now shooting in Europe with a cast that includes Javier Bardem, Idris Elba, Ray Winstone and British stage actor Mark Rylance.

"Here's the funny thing," Penn says. "Calling it an 'action film' is kind of like calling Meryl Streep a sexy blonde chick. She is. But that really doesn't tell the story of what she is at all.

"I don't separate this in my mind from anything else I have done. It's a very human story that deals with the same things exploited in action films, like warfare."

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Penn stars as Jim Terrier,a former Special Forces soldier and later military contractor who works peacefully for a non-government organization in the Congo. But Terrier gets drawn back into his violent past. Penn, who has devoted himself to humanitarian causes, including Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, says he frequently comes across the type of conflicted character he plays in The Gunman.

"I have seen people in this line of work at work," he says. "That does inform what we're doing here."

He won't say how he prepared for the part, beyond "diet and exercise."

"I find anatomical discussions much more interesting when centered on the female form," Penn says. "So I'll leave it at that."

But he attended a special military training camp in Arizona, mastered close-range fighting and handles many of the stunts.

"Sean's been fervent in having the physique and the mental focus to be able to be this guy," Silver says. "When he commits to something, he really commits."

For Penn it's about getting into the mind-set. "If a character makes leather wallets, it's great to spend some time actually making leather wallets," he says. "It gives actors a confidence of their character's history."

Penn also helped his own cause by encouraging respected actors such as Bardem, Winstone and Elba to come on board.

"Sean can call most anyone in the world and they say 'Ya, I'd like to do that with you,' " Silver says.

Directing is Pierre Morel, who turned Liam Neeson, then 56, into an action star with 2008's Taken. Neeson followed that breakout with action films such as Taken 2 and the upcoming Non-Stop.

So it's little surprise that Silver looks ahead to the potential of what Penn could bring to a thoughtful action vehicle. After seeing him and Bardem shoot scenes in Barcelona, the Lethal Weapon producer was effusive.

"It wouldn't be lying if I said 'Wouldn't it be nice for this to become a franchise?' " Silver says. "But we have to make the first one first, and we have to make it great."

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1927870/news/1927870/

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