On and off screen, Penn is mightier

Patricia Clarkson was at the Venice Film Festival last year when she got an urgent call from Sean Penn. Penn tracked her down to check on her relatives, many of whom live in New Orleans and were being hammered by Hurricane Katrina.

Clarkson told him her family was safe, but that didn’t stop Penn from hopping a flight to Louisiana.

“I have no idea how he found me in Venice,” she says. “But he was really worried about my family. The next thing I know, he’s on a little boat in Louisiana, pulling people out of the water.”

Love him or hate him, Penn, 46, is in the thick of things. Whether it’s politics, current events or the fall awards season, he can’t help but draw both praise and scorn when he tackles a project.

He returns to the screen today with “All the King’s Men,” based on Robert Penn Warren’s 1947 Pulitzer Prize-winning book. Penn plays Willie Stark, a plain-talking Southern politician who becomes a populist governor, only to fall prey to the corruption of power.

The role seems fitting for Penn, who has become even more politically charged in and out of movies since winning the best-actor Oscar for 2003’s “Mystic River.”

He played Samuel Bicke in 2004’s “The Assassination of Richard Nixon.” Penn’s character was based on the real-life Samuel Byck, an unemployed salesman from Philadelphia who tried to hijack a plane and fly it into the White House on Feb. 22, 1974. Byck was shot to death in the plane after killing a police officer and a co-pilot.

And Penn remains a political firebrand off-screen.

He had no shortage of harsh words for President Bush after visiting storm-ravaged Louisiana, a trip that was depicted in Spike Lee’s Katrina documentary “When The Levees Broke.”

He has been to Iraq twice, once paying $56,000 for an ad in The Washington Post that was an open letter criticizing the war.

He visited Iran in August and wrote a series of columns for the San Francisco Chronicle, castigating the administration for “inflammatory rhetoric” about the country.

And in Toronto this month, he made headlines by calling Bush “a Beelzebub – and a dumb one.” (The Bush camp says the comment does not merit a response.)

Over a recent steak dinner at Los Angeles’ Chateau Marmont, Penn made no apologies for his tough talk or political activism.

If anything, he says, more people – particularly celebrities and others with high profiles – should follow suit.

“I think it’s incumbent upon everyone to speak up,” he says. “Not enough people do it. Maybe they’re afraid they’ll be criticized or called a Nazi. But I hope that never makes me embarrassed to lend a hand or speak my mind.”

Some critics argue that Penn’s outspoken nature could be his undoing, both professionally and on the political front.

“I think you’re seeing his public persona begin to intrude on his ability to portray a fictional character,” says film critic Jason Apuzzo, co-founder of the conservative Liberty Film Festival.

“I’m not sure what’s gained by getting in people’s faces and doing things like comparing Bush to Beelzebub,” Apuzzo says. “Whatever point he’s trying to make gets lost in the grandstanding and name-calling.”

Whether it will affect his box office clout is another matter, says Gitesh Pandya of boxofficeguru.com.

“He’s very selective about his movies,” Pandya says. “He doesn’t do much, and that makes him attractive with the awards committees and at the box office.

“All the King’s Men,” Pandya adds, “isn’t an easy sell, but he alone makes it worth paying attention to.”

So far, critics haven’t been kind. The film drew tough reviews at the Toronto Film Festival and comes with a lofty pedigree: The 1949 original won Academy Awards for best picture, actor for Broderick Crawford in the Stark role and supporting actress for Mercedes McCambridge.

Not that Penn is too concerned with impressing industry types. He’s careful to balance the job with a “close to normal” family life with his wife, Robin Wright Penn, daughter Dylan and sonHopper. He moved to Marin County, north of San Francisco, to avoid raising his kids in Hollywood.

Even when promoting his own movies, Penn manages to sound critical – and political.

“I never told anyone I was a salesman,” he says, drinking the bloody gravy left from his steak, cooked rare. “I’m not here to tell you what you’ll get for your dollar in a movie theater. If you listen to me, it’s like listening to Dick Cheney on how good a contract with Halliburton is. If you want to be stupid, that’s your problem.”

Penn says his movies, like his activism, are geared more toward “civilians” than critics and politicians.

He concedes his anger at pundits who accused him of trying to grab headlines when he joined the hurricane rescue efforts in New Orleans.

“I was able to lend a hand,” he says. “And that’s all I was there to do.

“People may want to make it more than that, but I don’t want to dignify all these talking-head (jerks). At the end of the day, you have do what you think is right, to act responsibly so you can live with yourself.”

Clarkson, who co-stars in “All the King’s Men,” says people often mistake Penn’s bluntness for ego.

“I mean, yes, he’s tough,” she says. “You better bring your A-game to the set, because if you don’t, he’ll let you know it. But it’s only because he’s a genuine person who cares deeply about the things he gets involved in.

“I hate that he gets criticized for speaking up about politics or the war or the horrible response to Katrina. We could all learn that lesson to be citizens first.”

And Penn promises no shortage of public appearances, although he’s aware how divisive he can be.

He says he’ll consider endorsing candidates in November’s midterm elections, but “won’t get involved with a single Democrat who doesn’t believe we should responsibly pull out of the war now.”

He pauses, then lights a cigarette.

“That’s if they’d want me. It’s not always productive for me to be standing by somebody’s side.”