Directors

Sean Penn is a powerhouse film performer capable of intensely moving work, who has gone from strength to strength during a colourful film career, and who has drawn much media attention for his stormy private life and political viewpoints.

Sean Justin Penn was born in Los Angeles, California, the second son of actress Eileen Ryan (née Annucci) and director, actor, and writer Leo Penn. His brother was actor Chris Penn. His father was from a Lithuanian Jewish/Russian Jewish family, and his mother is of half Italian and half Irish descent.

Penn first appeared in roles as strong-headed or unruly youths such as the military cadet defending his academy against closure in Taps (1981), then as fast-talking surfer stoner Jeff Spicoli in Ça chauffe au lycée Ridgemont (1982).

Fans and critics were enthused about his obvious talent and he next contributed a stellar performance alongside Timothy Hutton in the Cold War spy thriller Le jeu du faucon (1985), followed by a teaming with icy Christopher Walken in the chilling Comme un chien enragé (1986). The youthful Sean then paired up with his then wife, pop diva Madonna in the woeful, and painful, Shanghai Surprise (1986), which was savaged by the critics, but Sean bounced back with a great job as a hot-headed young cop in Colors (1988), gave another searing performance as a US soldier in Vietnam committing atrocities in Outrages (1989) and appeared alongside Robert De Niro in the uneven comedy Nous ne sommes pas des anges (1989). However, the 1990s was the decade in which Sean really got noticed by critics as a mature, versatile and accomplished actor, with a string of dynamic performances in first-class films.

Almost unrecognisable with frizzy hair and thin rimmed glasses, Penn was simply brilliant as corrupt lawyer David Kleinfeld in the Brian De Palma gangster movie L'Impasse (1993) and he was still in trouble with authority as a Death Row inmate pleading with a caring nun to save his life in La dernière marche (1995), for which he received his first Oscar nomination. Sean then played the brother of wealthy Michael Douglas, involving him in a mind-snapping scheme in The Game (1997) and also landed the lead role of Sgt. Eddie Walsh in the star-studded anti-war film La Ligne rouge (1998), before finishing the 1990s playing an offbeat jazz musician (and scoring another Oscar nomination) in Accords & désaccords (1999).

The gifted and versatile Sean had also moved into directing, with the quirky but interesting The Indian Runner (1991), about two brothers with vastly opposing views on life, and in 1995 he directed Jack Nicholson in Crossing Guard (1995). Both films received overall positive reviews from critics. Moving into the new century, Sean remained busy in front of the cameras with even more outstanding work: a mentally disabled father fighting for custody of his seven-year-old daughter (and receiving a third Oscar nomination) for Sam je suis Sam (2001); an anguished father seeking revenge for his daughter's murder in the gut-wrenching Clint Eastwood-directed Mystic River (2003) (for which he won the Oscar as Best Actor); a mortally ill college professor in 21 grammes (2003) and a possessed businessman in The Assassination of Richard Nixon (2004).

Certainly Sean Penn is one of Hollywood's most controversial, progressive and gifted actors.

Such is the mythology that has sprung up around Bruce Robinson's first film, the openly autobiographical Withnail et moi (1987), that it's often hard to separate fact from fiction. But the facts appear to be these: trained as an actor at London's Central School of Speech and Drama, he got off to a good early start when he was given a reasonably prominent part as Benvolio in Franco Zeffirelli's Roméo et Juliette (1968). But despite this and other parts for the likes of Ken Russell (Music Lovers - La Symphonie pathétique (1971)) and François Truffaut (the male lead in L'histoire d'Adèle H. (1975)), he found that acting mostly involved fruitless waiting for the phone to ring interspersed with the occasional TV commercial, while desperately trying to make ends meet. So he began writing screenplays in the mid-1970s, and was lucky enough to secure the patronage of producer David Puttnam who finally produced Robinson's script about Cambodia, La déchirure (1984) for which he was nominated for an Oscar. But cult success was to come a couple of years later when he wrote and directed Withnail et moi (1987), a film about the squalid lives of two unemployed actors that was elevated to iconic status by students all over the world and which shot newcomer Richard E. Grant to stardom. Robinson's subsequent films, the advertising satire Tête-à-tête (1989) and the serial-killer thriller Jennifer 8 (1992), while less memorable than his debut, both show that Robinson has more than enough intelligence and brio to make his future career worth following.