1. He previously made the sobering dramas "The Indian Runner," "The Crossing Guard" and "The Pledge," the latter two starring Jack Nicholson.

2. You‘ve got a lot of stuff that will be new to share.‘ Almost all the characters to whom Penn has been drawn are to some degree cut off from the world, whether by murderous obsession (Samuel J Bicke in The Assassination of Richard Nixon; Sergeant Tony Meserve in Casualties of War; Matthew Poncelet in Dead Man Walking; Jimmy Markum in Mystic River), by mental or physical damage (Sam Dawson in I Am Sam; Eddie Quinn in She‘s So Lovely; Paul Rivers in 21 Grams), by drugs (Eddie in Hurlyburly, Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High), or by artistic self–absorption (Emmet in Sweet and Lowdown). But the fury that fuels Penn‘s performances – ‘the wonderful homicidal quality of his rage,‘ as the screenwriter Nick Kazan describes it – is examined in even greater depth in the three films that he has directed (he also wrote the first two): The Indian Runner (1''1), The Crossing Guard (1''5) and The Pledge (2001). On the surface, Penn‘s well–told tales seem disparate.