‘Superpower’ Director Sean Penn Blasts Putin As “Gangster With Nukes” – Deadline

Superpower director Sean Penn isn’t mincing phrases in his denunciation of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The two-time Oscar-winning actor, whose new documentary in regards to the struggle in Ukraine is now streaming on Paramount+, calls the Kremlin chief “a gangster with nuclear weapons,” in an interview with Deadline. His feedback got here throughout a taping at Deadline studios in Los Angeles for an upcoming episode of Doc Talk, a brand new podcast that launched earlier this month.

At one other level within the interview, Penn described Putin as “this monster that’s running the show” in Russia now. In distinction, he lauds Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s character responding to the existential menace to his nation from Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. 

“The pursuit of patriotism, it is the courage of moral clarity where there’s chaos, it is what Zelenskyy brings to the party,” he insisted. “It is what we saw when he spoke at the UN [Tuesday].”

Penn added, in reference to Zelenskyy’s deal with, “When one watches that — we all have pretty good lie detectors, whether we’re on the right or left — if we really just take a breath, there’s nothing not genuine about this guy’s speech. And in English, his third language… It’s the highest functioning human leadership and courage that we could all aspire to having, and certainly to maintain committed support of.”

For his documentary Superpower, which Penn co-directed with Aaron Kaufman, he traveled seven instances to Ukraine. The impetus for the movie took place lengthy earlier than anybody knew Putin was mulling a full-scale invasion of his peaceable neighbor; Penn says his unique thought was to search out out extra about how Zelenskyy, who had been a well-liked comic in Ukraine (and Russia, for that matter), had made the transition to chief of his nation. He mentioned he appeared on the venture as a welcome respite from a few of his different journalistic and humanitarian work in tough circumstances.

“I thought after the kind of throwing yourself around the world in harsh places, this would be kind of a lighthearted tale,” Penn recalled with a contact of irony. “Maybe that’s what I was in the mood to do at that time, and it wouldn’t be a heavy lift because I had carpentry projects I wanted to finish around my house. I didn’t want to spend all my time doing it. And then it turned into something, on its own, much more.”

As seen in Superpower, Penn met head to head with Zelenskyy, with out cameras current, on February 23, 2022. They set the following day for an on-camera interview – the very day, it turned out, when Russia launched its invasion. As components of Kyiv burst into flames and Russian commandoes seized the airport within the capital, Penn and his staff waited for phrase from Zelenskyy’s workplace. Hours into the assault on his nation, the Ukrainian president stored his promise to satisfy with Penn. Zelenskyy thanked the actor-filmmaker for serving to help the Ukrainian trigger by his documentary venture.

Penn recalled the sensation of winding his approach by the presidential palace to the placement of his assembly with Pres. Zelenskyy. The day earlier than he had seen many younger troopers in those self same corridors, however immediately their actuality had dramatically modified.

“All of these young faces that we would’ve seen in a kind of soft posture the day before are now likely going to face imminent battle for their lives,” Penn mentioned. “And so walking through there — all the lights are very low, everything is shut down — and seeing these faces, these hundreds of soldiers in the hallways, young faces pondering how the world just changed and that they’re at the front of it… I was terrified for them. The courage was so extreme.”

Following his deal with on the UN this week, Pres. Zelenskyy traveled to Washington the place he met with Pres. Biden, who promised continued support to Ukraine. Biden additionally reportedly provided to provide the embattled nation with a restricted variety of Army Tactical Missile Systems, which in line with NBC News, “would give Kyiv the ability to strike targets from as far away as about 180 miles, hitting supply lines, railways, and command and control locations behind the Russian front lines.”

On Friday, Pres. Zelenskyy headed north to Canada, the place he addressed the Canadian parliament. “Moscow must lose once and for all,” he informed members of parliament. “And it will lose.” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy denied Zelenskyy a chance to deal with a joint session of Congress.

“Look, I think it’s very clear that conservatives in America have dwindling support for what I think is a sacred obligation of the United States for so many reasons,” Penn noticed. Among these sacred obligations, he famous the U.S. signing of the Budapest Memorandum in 1994, an settlement beneath which newly impartial Ukraine gave up its nuclear stockpile in alternate for safety assurances from the U.S. (in addition to a assure from Moscow that it wouldn’t assault Ukraine until threatened by its neighbor).

Penn once more known as on the Biden administration to supply decisive help and superior weapons methods to Ukraine in its battle for survival.

“I think that [Pres. Biden] deserves the legacy that he will get by committing these assets in an absolutely robust way now,” Penn mentioned. “And I do think it’ll actually be politically advantageous to any candidate that might do that, whether they’re Republican or Democrat, because this is an unambiguous war.”

The episode of Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast that includes the total interview with Sean Penn will premiere on October 3.