At the 2025 Lumière Film Festival in Lyon, Sean Penn opened up about the thrill of discovering his latest character in One Battle After Another. The 65-year-old actor called the role a rare creative surprise that reignited his passion for filmmaking.
“The dream role is the one that surprises you the way this one did,” said American actor Sean Penn on Monday in Lyon, central France, reflecting on his part as a sadistic soldier in his latest film One Battle After Another.
Honored as the guest of the 17th Lumière Film Festival—an event celebrating global cinema—Penn shared insights during a master class about his artistic process and experiences on set.
“I started reading the script, started laughing, and thought, this can’t be real... I had an absolute blast,” said the two-time Oscar winner for Mystic River (2003) by Clint Eastwood and Harvey Milk (2008) by Gus Van Sant.
Speaking on stage at a downtown Lyon theater, Penn compared director Paul Thomas Anderson’s tenth feature film to “an extraordinary piece of music” that tells the turbulent story of an American soldier in the 2020s amid racial tensions.
“I just thought, all I have to do is play that music—just go with it,” Penn added, referring to the film, which also stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Benicio del Toro.
Since the early 1980s, Penn has appeared in more than fifty films and directed several acclaimed features and documentaries, including The Crossing Guard (1995) and The Pledge (2001) with Jack Nicholson, as well as Into the Wild (2007), the story of a young graduate’s journey of self-discovery in the Alaskan wilderness.
On Friday night, the 2025 Lumière Award will be presented to 82-year-old American filmmaker Michael Mann, whose twelve feature films—including Heat (1995) starring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro—have defined four decades of American cinema.
Founded in 2009, the festival screens over 150 classics across 450 showings through Sunday and has previously honored Milos Forman, Ken Loach, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Tim Burton, Clint Eastwood, Quentin Tarantino, Pedro Almodóvar, Wong Kar-wai, Catherine Deneuve, and Isabelle Huppert.
With AFP
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