Italian
Sean Penn is “proud” about President Joe Biden’s most recent pardon.
“Any father that didn’t do that would have been remiss,” Penn tells Variety, adding: “I don’t know if I want to have a beer with somebody who wouldn’t have pardoned Hunter Biden, being their son.”
As a close friend and confidant of the younger Biden – whose paintings adorn Penn’s walls – the actor calls the now-cleared tax evasion charges and gun-related felonies “one of the horrible hit jobs of all time,” and “existentially insane.”
“In part because I am close with him, I have studied the case,” says Penn. “And while there are technicalities within one of the cases that are associated with illegality, there is almost no precedent at all for the aggression with which he was charged.”
Despite President Biden’s previous vows to withhold such clemency from his own kin, Penn believes that a vituperative incoming administration – “a clown show, a dangerous clown show,” as Penn describes it – more than forced the president’s hand.
Popular on Variety “I do not believe that Joe Biden, had he won the presidency, would have pardoned his son,” says Penn. “I don’t think it was a lie; I think it was a change of mind and circumstance.”
As a citizen, Penn hopes this change in circumstance will encourage the outgoing administration to be more generous with presidential pardons.
“It ain’t January yet,” he says. “[So] I hope that it is also in President Biden’s intentions to [offer] an ongoing concerted focus on people who have been wrongfully charged, overcharged, where the extenuating circumstances have not been fairly considered, and that there will be many more pardons that are better for the world than leaving people to toil in prison.”
And on personal level, Penn is thrilled for Hunter Biden, “one of the finest people I know.”
“This is a guy who has taken on the most severe addiction, and has so much to offer people who are suffering or families who are suffering through that,” says the star. “And I just I’m glad that the possibility is there now that he’ll have the time and space to be able to offer that support to people, which I know is what he wants to do.”
Might Penn offer a spot at his non-profit, CORE (Community Organized Relief Effort)?
“We would be proud to have him,” he says. “He’s also a fantastic painter.”
Speaking with Variety at the Marrakech Film Festival, Penn remains tight-lipped about his role alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in Paul Thomas Anderson’s mysterious new film, except to praise the veil of secrecy that still hangs over the project.
“They all should be [like that],” he says with a grin. “Audiences should welcome it being hush-hush. I think just go in and experience it.”
However the actor and director is considerably more effusive about one of his lesser-known passions: carpentry.
As he considers upcoming projects both in front of the camera and behind, Penn has started a small professional society with fellow woodworkers Harrison Ford and Nick Offerman for the trio to share tips and workshop materials.
“[Ford] can build a house from the ground up,” says Penn. “He’s a very capable guy. While [Offerman] is less into power tools than into carving. I think he wants [the word] ‘woodworker’ on his grave.”
And how might Penn want to be remembered?
“My aspiration — and I’ve told my children this — is to earn a [reputation as a] squared away individual. With these bigger world issues, you take them as they come, but take them from a clean console. It’s good to not have clutter.”
