Sean Penn stars with James Franco and Josh Brolin in Milk, a biopic about the first openly gay man elected to office in San Francisco. Harvey Milk served as the city supervisor in late 1970s San Francisco and campaigned for gay rights. Penn stars as the title character in the film and James Franco is his lover.

Penn’s co-star James Franco said in an interview with Out Magazine that the first person Penn told about his first experience kissing a man, which was supposedly with Franco on the set of the film, was his ex wife Madonna. He claims Penn sent Madonna a text message about the experience and mentioned he thought she might be interested. Madonna and Penn were married for four turbulent years nearly twenty years ago, from 1985 to 1989.

Sean Penn’s “Milk” costar James Franco has further dished about the pair’s lengthy on-screen kiss. Franco told Out magazine, “After our [on-screen] kiss, Sean texted Madonna – his ex-wife, Madonna – and said, ‘I just popped my cherry kissing a guy. I thought of you. I don’t know why‘ . . . There’s a scene in the pool and everybody else is dressed and there’s just something uncomfortable about that.”

[From Huffington Post]

The Huffington Post also reminds us of Franco’s remarks about kissing Penn. He described how it took about a minute to film and that it felt like a long time. He said he thought “Oh, my God, I’m kissing Spicoli.”

Franco said in another interview (link leads to video) about his kiss with Penn that “It was amazing, I got to make out with him a few times… it was great.”

What surprises me about this story is that Penn is still in touch with Madonna after nearly twenty years. You would assume those two don’t communicate at all, but he supposedly has her current cell phone number and occasionally contacts her. Who knew?

Here’s the trailer for Milk, which looks Oscar-worthy, incredibly moving and inspirational. The film is out in limited release in the US starting on November 26th.