Sean Penn Once Took a Dangerous Car Ride With Jack Nicholson in Russia to Meet Vladimir Putin: I Had a ‘Cold, Ugly Feeling’
variety.comZack Sharf Back in 2001, Sean Penn found himself next to Jack Nicholson in a speeding car on the way to meet Russian president Vladimir Putin.
The two actors were in Russia for the world premiere of “The Pledge” at the Moscow Film Festival. The Penn-directed psychological drama starred Nicholson as a retiring police detective who vows to catch the killer of a young child.
Penn recently spoke to The Independent about his anxiety-inducing journey to meet Putin. “We were put in a convoy,” Penn said. “We knew that Putin was going to be the honored guest.
In the nature of that time and space, we accepted the invitation. We got in this convoy, and we were going as fast as they wanted to drive, with no care for whether it might have presented danger in the villages we drove through.” “When farmers with pony-driven carts were trying to come across, the security people in our vehicles would lean out the window to baton them away,” Penn continued. “It was so needlessly aggressive.” The actor said the entire journey gave him “a cold, ugly feeling.” Penn has been making the press rounds at the Berlin Film Festival and beyond in support of his new documentary “Superpower,” which follows Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy amid Ukraine’s war against Russia.
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