Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer In his new documentary “Superpower,” Sean Penn assesses Ukraine’s ongoing war with Russia and the meaning of the word “freedom” in a world gone mad.
He’s also revisits his own past with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, a moment that Penn calls a dark memory from decades before he would meet up with embattled Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
In the doc, Penn recalls a 2001 visit to the Moscow Film Festival where his directorial effort “The Pledge” was premiering. He and the film’s lead Jack Nicholson had a brief meeting with Putin, a photograph of which is shown in “Superpower.” “We did have a chance to talk for about 20 minutes of that night, one-on-one,” Penn told Variety during an on-camera interview about his Paramount Plus original, a companion to Stephen Rodrick’s lush profile of the actor for this week’s Variety cover. “President Bush had just recently had the famous meeting, where he said he looked [Putin] in the eyes and he knew he could trust him.
I don’t think that my insights were any deeper than President Bush’s,” said Penn. “I think he knew how to be impressive and to guide the conversation … he knew that I would be interested.
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