Sean Penn is saying that the current zeitgeist would prevent him to play the part of a gay man, as he did in his Oscar-winning 2008 performance in “Milk.” He’s blaming a “timid and artless” current creative climate.
Penn said this during an interview with New York Times and was responding to a question asking whether he would be able to play Harvey Milk, the role for which Penn won a best actor Oscar.
The actor says “Milk” “was the last time I had a good time [on a film set]”, Penn added: “It could not happen in a time like this. It’s a time of tremendous overreach. It’s a timid and artless policy toward the human imagination.”
Gus Van Sant’s acclaimed biopic, written by Dustin Lance Black, tackled the first out gay politician to win office in California. After 11 months in office, Milk was shot dead, along with San Francisco mayor George Moscone, by former political rival Dan White.
The side of the argument that’s against Penn’s assertion is that in the past 5 years we’ve had three straight male actors winning Oscars for portaying gay characters: Brendan Fraser (“The Whale”), Rami Malek (“Bohemian Rhapsody”) and Mahershala Ali (“Green Book”). Not to mention actresses such as Cate Blanchett (“TAR”), and Annette Bening (“NYAD”) who were nominated for Lead Actress.
Nobody is being prevented from playing these roles.
Except, in regard to all of the ones mentioned above, the difference with Penn’s work in “Milk” is that he was playing a gay icon, and the film absolutely embraced Milk’s sexuality. I can kind of see there being some backlash over Penn’s casting today. It’s really hard to really know.