Sean Penn on “The Gunman”: “I fight a lot ‘- SPIEGEL ONLINE

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  REUTERS

   
    Sean Penn , born in 1960, has twice won the Academy Award for Best Actor 2004 for the revenge drama “Mystic River,” 2009 for the biopic “Milk”. As a director, he made especially with the dropout drama “Into the Wild” talking point. Before his next directorial effort “The Last Face” starts, it can be seen from Thursday in the action thriller “The Gunman”.


 

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Penn, respect! In “The Gunman” You are a true muscleman. How do you do that when you’re 54 years old, chain smokes and likes to take a drink? Penn: Well, you stopped smoking and drinking on (taking a train from his freshly lit fag)

SPIEGEL ONLINE:. Can not obviously.

Penn: However, as we have already shot. I knew that the film was demand from me a certain physicality. I felt fit enough to fill the role, the rest was actually in turning. Was quite exhausting.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You used to surfer, how do you keep yourself fit today?

Penn: I fight a lot

SPIEGEL ONLINE:. Of course.

Penn: No, really, I’ve been a few years Krav Maga, not really practicing a sport, more of a melee technique that is taught to the Israeli military.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: As you had unconsciously prepared for your first big action role-playing!

Penn: I consider “The Gunman” not so much as an action film. The action scenes are a natural part of the world in which the protagonists act. I have read the script actually like any other writer, that’s interesting for me. It was not aware about making a genre film.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Do you like action movies

Penn: It depends. For some reasons, directors and screenwriters seem when they approach the action genre, drawn to a more comedic version of force production to feel. Take the classic buddy movie: The funny sayings, the back and forth between the characters ?? sometimes that’s great, I love as movies like “48 Hours”. But it quickly becomes very schematically. Or it follows a very simple genre typical emotional narrative. Both I did not want to “The Gunman”, so it was important to find the right director.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So you were looking at the Frenchman Pierre Morel, the director of the action hit “Taken”. Why him?

Penn: It was not my sole decision, but ultimately I am very happy that we were able to “The Gunman” win Pierre. I knew his work as a cameraman for “The Transporter” and of course “Taken”. In addition, he very well versed in military matters and is familiar with NGO work. He has traveled to Africa and is aware of the political dynamics that prevails there.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The decisive factor was therefore not that he has helped your now 62 years old colleague Liam Neeson with “Taken” to a late career as an action hero? Did you apart is also available in a lucrative reinvention?

Penn: No, not at all, but I was aware that I would ever again asked for it! There are now even a name for the old men’s action genre, you know the already

SPIEGEL ONLINE: No.

Penn: you name it Geriaction , Action with old men. For all I care, take me in with that, I can not help it. But for me, “The Gunman” a very different kind of movie.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: It is based on the novel “The Prone Gunman”, in which the former once covered an Operating soldier, responsible for an assassination that plunged the Republic of Congo into chaos , is confronted with his past. You co-wrote what you have added?

Penn: Not so much, it was important to me is to give the plot a current reference, the novel comes from the eighties, many seemed outdated. What concerns me much, was the question of how much my participation in this film and the next ??

SPIEGEL ONLINE: “The Last Face”, a relationship drama about two aid workers in Africa where you direct it ??

Penn: ?? exactly, I was wondering what and how much does that have to do with my commitment to Haiti and other political issues with which I am involved outside of the movies.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: After the earthquake of 2010 founded a charity for the people of Haiti, you’ve been in Pakistan to get a picture of the situation of flood victims of 2012 to make. And what do you think the films have to do with it?

Penn: I have not a clear answer, but it is clear that we live in a time in which there is global so many crises, so many refugees and displaced persons as yet Never. This problem is more and more part of our western world, so we’ll have to do by force. At least now! This is also true for us actors and filmmakers. The writer E. L. Doctorow once wrote in an essay on the responsibility of the artist who approaches a key sentence: Be aware of the time in which you live.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Can you draw an action film with attention to the state of emergency in Africa?

Penn: I hope so. If one or the other younger “Gunman” onlookers attentive listening, if it is reported in the news about crises in Africa, it would already achieved a lot.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: you had indeed can make a documentary. With your name would have certainly caused a stir.

Penn: Yes, of course. I could also get a job as an interviewer who then made an attempt on Kim Jong Un! But we have been ‘The Gunman “was filmed. Maybe I will someday also a documentation, who knows?

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Seriously, would you make a film about Haiti or let him play there?

Penn: I’ve thought about it. But quite apart from what story you told or what kind of movie it would be: If I do that, then it would important to me is to strengthen the local film industry. I would like financing, which makes it possible to bring Haitians in the United States or Europe, where they can be formed. Then you could turn on Haiti with a local crew, we bring expertise into the country. There are very talented filmmakers in Haiti, but lack the resources and infrastructure to make a great film. Perhaps there is some point to that would be great. But to be honest: At the moment there is still much to deal with more pressing problems.

Brief review “The Gunman”

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  DPA

   
   The conditions for “The Gunman” sounded great: A European-trained action director (Pierre Morel, “Transportation”, “Taken”), a character actor in abundance (Sean Penn, Javier Bardem, Jasmine Trinca, Mark Rylance Ray Winstone) and a gambling in Africa’s political thriller script, based on the bestselling novel by Jean-Patrick Manchette. Unfortunately, however, Sean Penn’s attempt to position itself as an action hero in the style of the Bourne series, an ambitious, but also very tough, opaque dramatic ordeal. starting on April 30 .