The actor Sean Penn said nobody could ever be better than: “That ultimate poem has been written”
He’s perhaps not often cropping up as many’s immediate rollcall of beloved Hollywood actors, but Sean Penn’s filmography is littered with a dazzling run of intensely arresting yet eclectic roles.
Finding fame in the early 1980s semi-orbiting the so-called Brat Pack, Penn quickly forged a formidable presence for himself as a force on the screen, joining the ranks of Gary Oldman or Mickey Rourke for dependably dexterous performances. He could do Colors and Casualties of War’s dark violence, as well as stepping into the shoes of California’s first gay elected official, Harvey Milk, or an aging goth rocker in 2011’s This Must Be the Place.
Penn was moulded by the method craft of acting. Working closely with the Actors Studio member and occasional Lee Strasberg substitute Peggy Feury, the 18-year-old Penn’s burgeoning performance approach was shaped by the “bring yourself to the material rather than the material to you” exercise in pouring one’s own emotional experience into a role. Such intense means often necessitate Penn’s locking into character between takes, maintaining maximum authenticity, and staying in the required creative headspace.
For such a high standard, it’s intriguing to know the actor that Penn looks up to. Speaking on PBS’ Charlie Rose in 2004, Penn confessed to deeming the bar set higher than anyone can hope to touch. “Movies are an extremely new art form still today, if you relate it to painting or music or any of these other things,” he mused. “Music’s not going to get better than Tchaikovsky, paintings are not going to get better than Da Vinci or Rembrandt, and acting is not going to get better than Marlon Brando. That ultimate poem has been written”.
It’s a foundation that most actors head to when considering their influential ground zero. Marking a new terrain of authenticity, Brando’s Stanislavski method yielded a gravitas and effortless realism that pulled cinema away from the theatrical exaggerations still wedded to yesteryear’s stage in favour of a naturalistic unveiling of the character’s psychological and inner psyche. Along with the likes of James Dean and Montgomery Clift, cinema felt closer to home, dwelling on the same street, bars, or workplaces most Americans and the world knew every day.
Such a new acting era suited Brando. As well as excursions into musical comedy and historical epics, Brando’s true genius shines in the rawer, 1950s social realism he’d immerse himself in, a paralysed war veteran in The Men, the leader of a biker gang in The Wild One, or the immortal roles in Elia Kazan’s A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront. Brando brought reality up close on the silver screen, setting an example that Robert De Niro and Al Pacino would seriously take notes from.
Future greatness would stand tall with his aforementioned efforts, mesmerising roles in The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, if surrounded by his increasingly eccentric and unpredictable on-set behaviour, but Brando’s imprint on the acting craft leaves an incalculable mark that will offer guidance to many generations of aspiring performers long after Penn’s final roles.
