Tough Guy Talking

He talks about his upbringing in L.A., his pull toward acting. His father, Leo Penn, was a blacklisted actor turned director who died in September of cancer at the age of 77. His mother, actress Eileen Ryan, gave up work to raise sons Michael (a songwriter), Sean and Chris (a character actor); she's now happily back at it. ""She just did the guest lead on "Ally McBeal','' her boy says proudly. As a kid Sean hated school, liked to get out of the house. By the end of high school he was working in local theater groups. ""I was doing a lot of little plays, but I wasn't getting the parts I wanted,'' he says. What kind of parts? ""Um--bigger parts. I'd open the show, then I'd be backstage for an hour, then I'd do a scene. Next thing I know I'm at curtain call, and I didn't feel like I did anything. I liked to work--the work aspect of things.''

By his early 20s, Penn had distinguished himself in ""Fast Times at Ridgemont High'' (1982), ""Racing With the Moon'' (1984), ""The Falcon and the Snowman'' (1985). ""You hear talk about people going out on a limb?'' says ""Fast Times'' director Amy Heckerling. ""He'll go out on the tiniest twig. He'll go out on a leaf.'' ""Racing With the Moon'' director Richard Benjamin recalls Penn's begging to do a dangerous stunt involving a train: ""It wasn't a machismo thing. He was worried that the stuntman's body action wouldn't be the same as his--that the audience wouldn't see it the way his character would do it.'' Around 1985 World War III hit. Penn married Madonna, started slugging photographers and beat guys if they rubbed him the wrong way. In 1987 he wound up in L.A. County jail for a month after violating probation in connection with an assault-and-battery charge. He was a bad-boy cartoon. He calls the punching episodes ""a lack of discretion relative to witnesses present'' and ""entirely justified behavior.''

At least he came out the other side. He and Madonna divorced in 1989, and he married Wright in 1996. Today Penn will try to tell you he's peaceful and likes the quiet life on the quiet street with the bakeries and kiddies. It's almost convincing. One thing for sure has changed: Penn has found something healthy upon which to take out his aggression. Something genuinely corrupt and stinky. Something that could use an influx of idealism. Hollywood.

Penn thinks most big, commercial movies are abominable, and he's appalled when talented actors debase themselves in them. ""I saw "Snake Eyes' last night,'' he says. ""It's not just that movie, it's most movies. As damaged as I am, as reckless as I've been, I never murdered my own "voice.' I think actors s--t on their profession all the time. They can't do a pure movie again, because they carry so much baggage.'' This is where ""Hurlyburly'' and bakeries and anger and idealism intersect: at a point of purity, one he's achieved on his own terms. For a moment he's silent. Then he says, ""Anything important for me to hold onto, I've held onto.'' No questions. None needed.

DEVIN GORDON AND YAHLIN CHANG

© 1998