The director Sean Penn sued for $10million: “Scandalous, scurrilous, and baseless”
If you haven’t seen Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another yet (and if not, why not?) then hurry yourself along to your local multiplex, because it is on its way out now, and it really needs to be seen on a big screen, firstly to do the thrilling last half an hour justice, and secondly to give the performance by Sean Penn as much scale as possible.
It’s a hell of a bit of work from Penn at 65; an emotional, physical endurance ride watching a man begin as someone pumped full of masculine confidence, then reduced to a battered shell, but never losing the arrogance of believing he’s better than everyone else. If he doesn’t win a ‘Best Supporting Actor’ Oscar for his turn as Colonel Steven J Lockjaw, then you’d imagine he’ll only be beaten to it by Benicio del Toro in the same film.
Anderson obviously gets the best out of Penn, not an easy feat when you consider the older man is a director of some repute himself, responsible for quality movies like 2007’s superb Into the Wild, not least as a double Oscar-winning actor. The two also teamed up for 2021’s Licorice Pizza.
But one director that Penn doesn’t have such a rosy relationship with, to put it mildly, is Lee Daniels, the creator of the 2015 TV show Empire starring Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson, in addition to movies like 2009’s Precious, for which he won an Oscar nomination for ‘Best Director’.
The reason for the bad blood stems from a quote Daniels gave to the press in support of his leading man Howard’s admitted assault on his former wife, with Daniels saying Howard “ain’t done nothing different than Marlon Brando or Sean Penn, and all of a sudden he’s some fucking demon”.
Penn, who had some run-ins with the law but never any kind of allegations of domestic violence, took this slight very personally, especially as there had been rumours about his relationship with Madonna several decades ago, during which she eventually swore to the fact he had never assaulted her in any way at all.
He launched a $10million defamation suit against Daniels, calling his words ‘egregious’, and saying “As a result of Penn’s status as a public figure, he has for years been the subject of scandalous, scurrilous, and baseless attacks.” Penn’s complaint also noted that Daniels’ statement was “apparently part of a misguided campaign to profit and further bolster and brand his show Empire.”
In the end, the matter was settled out of court thanks to a full apology from Daniels, who said: “I am so sorry that I have hurt you, Sean, and I apologise and retract my reckless statements about you. How thoughtless of me. You are someone I consider a friend, a brilliant actor and true Hollywood legend and humanitarian.”
Daniels also made a sizable donation to Penn’s Haitian relief charity. Penn, in response, said: “I accept Lee’s heartfelt apology and appreciate the sincerity with which it was delivered.”
It was by far the only controversy that Daniels ran into with Empire; his other leading actor, Jussie Smollett, was accused of staging a hate crime for which he was arrested and eventually sentenced to prison time, although in the end it was changed to community service. Daniels initially again supported Smollett in the face of the accusations, but then backpedalled, saying he was hurt and confused by the situation.
Penn, meanwhile, who is also a political activist and has been for some time, has switched from acting to directing once again and is currently filming a project about the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed in 2018 after criticising his nation’s government.
