It gives me no pleasure to admit this, but I think Sean Penn’s performance in One Battle After Another was a career-best for him, and one of the great performances of 2025. His character, Lockjaw, was so funny, weird, awful, stupid, violent, tender and a million other things. It was a reminder that…oh, right, Sean Penn actually is one of the great actors of his generation. Once every decade, he reminds people of that. You could actually see something in Penn click too, like he was enjoying himself, enjoying this work. Well, Penn hasn’t been all over the place during OBAA’s promotion or the early part of the awards season. But I do get a sense that he’s campaigning and he’s having some fun with it too. He got one of W Magazine’s Best Performances covers, and his interview was honestly pretty great. Some highlights:
How he met Paul Thomas Anderson: “We’ve known each other for a very long time. My older brother scored his first two movies. Around 1990, my brother called and said he had a friend, a young director who had made a film, and would I give him some advice? When I look back on that today, it would be as if my brother asked me to call John Huston, one of the greatest directors of all time, to give him some advice. We came close to working together before Licorice Pizza, which I was in. Paul offered me Punch-Drunk Love, the movie with Adam Sandler, but not the Adam Sandler part.”
His role in Licorice Pizza was based on actor William Holden. “I thought I looked a bit bloated, but thank you. It was a charming movie. Bradley Cooper makes me giggle in that film. And I started hearing that Paul was going to send me another script. When he finally sent it to me, I was traveling and I took it with me. Late at night, still dripping wet from a shower, I grabbed it just to taste the opening pages. I sat there naked, laughing and really excited because Paul is always in totally different worlds. I thought to myself, Okay, he’s going there!
Whether he feels more like a cat or a dog: “Dog. But I do have a certain aloofness. I think Bob Dylan is credited with saying, “I’m not elusive, man. I’m exclusive.” I don’t get along with people in groups too much. I like small numbers of people to contend with. And, like a dog, I can be distracted by a bone that’s thrown. I am trying to train myself.
He was disillusioned with acting. “Eighteen years ago, when I did Milk, was the last time that I enjoyed the work. But you want to be participating in something that is of your current interest, and with people who are surprising. Because of Paul’s movie, I’m in a stage of liking acting. But I’ve always got carpentry to fall back on. And surfing.
He’s smoked cigarettes since his 20s: “I must have been 22. I saw myself as an un-addictable person. W. Somerset Maugham has a quote: “Men are vain, particularly young men.” I was making a World War II–era movie called Racing with the Moon, and we were smoking unfiltered Ovals the whole time. After the shoot finished, this dark green carton of Turkish Ovals in the tobacconist’s store started calling me, saying, “You’re forgetting something.” I got a carton, and I’ve been smoking ever since. I don’t try to quit anymore. I love it. I don’t recommend it for anybody, but I love it. Now I smoke American Spirit yellow.
His drink of choice: “Vodka tonic only, even at a wedding. I say, “I will drink with you, but I’m not going to be bullied or peer pressured. I only drink vodka tonic.”
He is a superstitious person: “I think I’ve lived long enough to assume that something like karma exists. I have a little protocol that I go through: I have an anthropomorphic relationship with planes, and I make promises, so the plane will make me promises. And then I remember that [former Egyptian president] Anwar Sadat said, “I’m going to die, but not one second before God says so.” And then I remember that I’m in the air already. There’s nothing to do.
He is more like a cat, he just doesn’t want to admit that for some reason. His physicality is catlike and so is his energy. I didn’t know that about Punch Drunk Love either – as he says in W’s video (below), he wasn’t offered Adam Sandler’s lead role, he was offered the role which ended up going to Phillip Seymour Hoffman. What else? He only drinks vodka tonics?? Nothing else – never beer or wine? Hm.
Photo and cover courtesy of W Magazine.
I enjoyed OBAA but not rapturously like some other people did. I thought Sean Penn was good but also … kind of weird, IMO. Like, sometimes I thought he was menacing and other times I thought he was spastic. But maybe that’s because he was trying to channel this RFK, Jr. vibe? I didn’t really understand Teyana Taylor’s character either. I really enjoyed Benicio del Toro and Regina Hall though. I wish Hall in particular was getting more attention for her beautifully understated performance (such a departure from the comedies she’s always so great in) but she just didn’t have that big, THIS! IS! ACTING! moment.
I also loved Leo in this movie; given his eternal bachelor status off-screen, I had no idea how he would do playing a father. He did such a great job playing a well-intentioned doofus who loves his daughter and wants to see her safe, and I loved his chemistry with Chase Infiniti. The scene at the end when she goes to hug him at the breakfast table after the events of the climax… TEARS!
As for this article — sir, we can all tell you’ve smoked since you were 22. The skin never lies!
Girl yes. This is the best acting that Leo has ever done. I felt his anguish and panic. As for Tiana’s character, there are many like her in the community. They are here for the struggle until they get caught. Her role was pretty real. Penn’s character too, I effing hated Lockjaw. So weird and so menacing. I was happy with the outcome.
I didn’t care for Teyana’s performance. She certainly has presence but I thought she was a caricature in her acting choices. I wish Regina was in it more. She was great. Chase Infiniti was superb. Not easy to hold your own against Leo and Sean in two of their best (imo) performances.
He certainly has smoker’s face. Unfortunately, he probably has the lungs to go with.
Can you imagine?? I expect the tar is an inch thick.
Spot on comment! I smoked for about 18 years total and have been away from it for 10 years now. I see some of my same age friends that never quit and they look 15 years older than I do. I lost one of my best friends to COPD in 2024 and it made me so glad I quit. Now, the smell grosses me out and I can’t believe I used to enjoy it. Yuck!!
He was excellent in OBAA — he completely disappeared into the role and seemed unafraid of the grotesquery of the character.