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Sean Penn’s Haiti Benefit at Cannes on Saturday raised over $2 million for charities including his own, The J/P Haitian Relief Organization, his girlfriend Petra Nemcova’s Happy Hearts Fund and director Paul Haggis’ Artists for Peace and Justice. In a press conference ahead of the event, Penn alienated some with a remark about how how the whole world had forgotten Haiti. It was an understandable sentiment from someone so dedicated to a cause, but it came across as angry. He said “It’s not only celebrities who went for a day [to Haiti]. It’s the whole f#$*ing world. It’s all of you.”

In a new interview with Ann Curry on the Today Show, Penn came across much better than some of the quotes from the press conference made him sound. He was intense, but you could tell he cared so deeply and that this was a cause close to his heart. This may sound rude, but it was funny for me to contrast Ann Curry’s milquetoast concern, which is her approach to basically all interviews, and Penn’s impassioned pleas. Their styles worked together and Penn really seemed to open up. The dude is dedicated to this cause. He started crying and I wanted to give him a hug. Here’s what he said at the beginning, when he got choked up.

Curry: I detect an emotional component in this for you.
Penn: It’s emotional because you see how it can work, and you say ‘Oh God, it better work this time.’
Curry: What in your view, does victory look like in Haiti?
Penn: Victory looks like a brilliant young Haitian kid, who had no better choice than to go to the United States and get an education, make a decision to go home. [starts choking up]
It looks like where people have a chance, where kids get to say “I was born here, I can get the education here, and I can do it.”

Then Sean told a story about a man affected by the earthquake who lost his whole family and became a hero. This made me cry.

Curry: For many people who go to these kinds of places, there is an… image that doesn’t leave you.
Penn: I could give you a story image of a policeman who rationed his cigarettes because of the expense… Went home, he would see his children, his parents, his wife, downstairs… Went upstairs, took off his police uniform… walk outside to have that smoke. Then the earth shook and he turned around to the two level home behind him with his whole family in it, and it was up to his knees. He dove into it after his family, he reached into the concrete to get them and all he got was his uniform. So he put it on and he became the one guiding the emergency traffic that saved about 500 lives in the first two days.

As for his known anger, Penn laughed and explained that he gets pissed off at relief workers who come to Haiti for the glory and not to help people. He laughed about it, and said he needs to work on his temper. I thought this was funny. I’ll use the Today Show’s writeup for this part, because it puts his other comments into context:

Curry asked Penn about his demanding nature, particularly when working with helpers in Haiti, and he was unrepentant: “Most of the people I’m angry at are usually international volunteers who are coming over to stamp themselves with a do-gooder label. … I don’t control my temper well, I guess.”

Penn has long been a supporter of humanitarian causes, including journeying to post-Katrina New Orleans to help rescue people, though he drew some fire for bringing a photographer to document the event. But, he adds, he’s not out to prove he’s more moral-than-thou.

“I’m not going to accuse myself of being moral. … I recognize a lot of the things that are less than good in me, and similarly there is a very powerful thing that comes when something is good despite me,” he said.

And on the subject of morality, Penn has some ideas about the afterlife: “I prefer not to go to hell,” he said. “I’d like to think that heaven is a little sexier than generally portrayed … but if it is black and quiet, that’s OK too.”

[From MSNBC.com]

I came away with much more respect for Penn and for the incredible hard work he’s doing. Toward the end of the interview, around 4:00 in, they showed clips from some of his seminal roles. Curry asked Penn if he accepts that he’s “one of the greatest actors of our time,” and he answered it extremely well, basically admitting that he’s a good actor but chalking it up to a character flaw.

“I am constantly embarrassed by my own personality. Maybe I have a strength in that as an actor, in that maybe it’s because I’m willing to give it up. I have a very tough time with people. It’s not that I’m totally anti-social, it’s just that I don’t want to socialize with the people I already know.”

Then Curry called him an idealist and they had a laugh. It was probably one of the best interviews she’s done. Sometimes her approach works.

These are photos from the Haiti Carnivale party at Cannes, featuring Penn, Petra Nemcova, co-host Georgio Armani and guests Jessica Chastain, Diane Kruger and Joshua Jackson, and Jada Pinkett Smith. I’m impressed with how great everyone looks. Credit: Fame Flynet