Sean Penn On Acting: “I’m Not In Love With That Anymore”

Is Sean Penn thinking of going the Daniel Day-Lewis route? That three-time Oscar winner says he’s done with acting, and now the two-time Academy Awardee is on the record as saying the thrill is gone for him, too.

In an CBS Sunday Morning interview with Tracy Smith set to air this weekend, Penn says he really doesn’t dig the whole acting thing anymore. “You know, I think that this has been true for some time,” he tells Smith. “It can be great when you’re working with good actors or good directors or good writing as an exercise, but do I have a belief that it has a lasting value? Maybe, I could make the argument intellectually. But I don’t have a visceral – I’m not in love with that anymore.”

Maybe all he needs are some tasty waves and a cool buzz and he’ll be fine.

But there are other aspects of the industry that still do it for him, like writing — which he does in longhand. The interview is tied to the release of his first novel, Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff, which is due Tuesday from Simon & Schuster. It’s about a septic tank salesman-turned-assassin who kills people with a mallet. Among his other actions, Honey sends a letter containing a veiled threat to a fictional president.

Does he worry people won’t get the joke?

“You know, some people are going to get this book and some people are – not going to get this book,” Penn says in the interview. “Some people, I think, will really enjoy it, others will loathe it. And – and that really is what I’d like to say about me, you know?”

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