Age: 49.

Appearance: Unholy progeny of Robert de Niro and Sylvester Stallone.

Profession: Actor/director/journalist.

Journalist? Penn has written for Rolling Stone, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Nation and the Huffington Post, among others.

Any big assignments lately? Vanity Fair has sent him to Cuba to interview Fidel Castro

What are Penn's journalistic credentials, if any? "I have been in the public eye to varying degrees," he wrote last year, "for most of my 48 years, and had many occasions to sit in the front row of popular and political culture."

Is that it? "I can speak in first-hand, to bearing witness to an often untruthful, reckless and demonising media. Yes, in many cases, the smoke would prove an accurate expectation of fire."

Say what? George Orwell he ain't, I'm afraid.

So why have Vanity Fair sent him, then? Because a year ago he managed to meet both Fidel's brother Raul and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

And how did that go? His interview with Raul Castro lasted seven hours.

Yikes. Imagine having to boil that down to 2,000 well-chosen words. Penn's subsequent piece for the Huffington Post was 18,000 words long.

Give us a reflective moment from near the end. "In this early-hour darkness, our tires streaming the wet pavement, isolated in a quiet Havana morning, it strikes me that even the most basic belief in sovereignty offers substantial insight into the complexities of US antagonism toward Cuba and Venezuela, as well as the controversiality of those countries' internal policies."

Is there any sort of curious precedent for celebrities who can't write being sent to interview Latin American leaders? Well, GQ did dispatch Naomi Campbell to interview Chavez in 2007. She asked him if he knew the Spice Girls.

Do say: "File when you can, Sean. We're holding the front page and several dozen inside pages."

Don't say: "Fine Sean, but can you do him as a Pass notes?"

The Guardian, 29.10.09

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/oct/29/sean-penn-cuba-castro