Wild at heart

Apart from acting, he has directed three films of successive maturity and emotional complexity - The Indian Runner, The Border Crossing and The Pledge, the last two starring his old friend Jack Nicholson. Given the fact that several of the actors involved in Mystic River have also had their turn behind the camera, it must have been an intriguing set.

The attention to detail, not just of the characters, but also of the community of blue-collar Boston is absorbing and remarkable. 'A lot of it has to do with Clint,' says Penn. 'One aspect of it is the casting of the ensemble. We hadn't all worked together, but we knew of each other. And then to have a director who is so comfortable in his own skin and has selected the most practical tools from his own career makes you feel safe. Clint challenges you to raise your own standards but gives you a comfortable place to do it.'

Born in 1960 in Santa Monica, California, to writer/director Leo Penn and actress Eileen Ryan, it seems he was genetically predisposed to movie-making. In his first film, Taps (1981), he commanded attention as a young military cadet. Fast Times At Ridgemont High, Bad Boys and Racing With The Moon followed in quick succession, establishing his on-screen persona as a volatile rebel.

And, when he married Madonna in 1985, he further made a name for himself by firing a gun at a press helicopter covering their wedding.

A heavy drinker, he served 32 days in prison for hitting an extra who tried to photograph him on a film set. By the time he married Robin Wright in 1996, she had given birth to their daughter, Dylan Frances, and their son, Hopper Jack (named after his friends Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson).

Until his performance in Brian De Palma's Carlito's Way in 1993, Penn had dropped off the acting radar. Since then, he has had a renaissance, appearing in five films in 1997, three in 2000 and three this year, including Mystic River and Alejandro Gonz·lez Iñ·²²itu's 21 Grams, for which he won best actor at the Venice Film Festival.

Had his attitude to acting changed? 'There are two things operating here with me,' he says. 'One is disappointment - there were times when you wondered why you were putting yourself through it. Then there's the proactive side of directing and working - you're picking your own family and material.'

As we speak, Penn appears to be a mature and complex individual whose problems have less to do with his personality and more to do with his artistic frustration. He is Hollywood's worst nightmare - a movie star with a conscience.

That may have something to do with Penn's father, who died while his son was shooting Woody Allen's Sweet And Lowdown in 1999, and had been a victim of blacklisting by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee in the Fifties.

Is there a psychological legacy from his father? 'Hard to know,' he says, in a rare unguarded moment. 'I'm sure there is. I don't analyse it too much. I would say that my father's presence is a part of my life and it probably always will be. I had a very loving father. Having felt the benefit, it makes me angry to see people miss the opportunity to have that in life.'

Indeed, Penn does not separate politics from art, or even life. Committed enough to journey to

Baghdad to join a group of American peace protesters just prior to the war against Iraq and to cancel a movie in order to produce a short film about 9/11, Penn says he is tapping into a personal sense of human injustice rather than intellectualising a political belief. 'There is no sense in labelling these actions,' he says.

'Whether you write a poem or a letter to the president, it's the same f***ing thing to me.'

Mystic River opens Fri 17 Oct.