Sean Penn has expressed that he is open to working with Woody Allen despite the child sex abuse allegations against the filmmaker.
In a new interview, Penn, who received an Oscar nomination for his work on Allen’s Sweet and Lowdown (1999), said he was down to work with the director again.
“I love that movie. I’d work with him in a heartbeat if it was the right thing,” Penn said on The Louis Theroux Podcast.
Allen was accused of sexual abuse by his adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow. Of the allegations about the Annie Hall director, Penn said, “I don’t know anyone well enough to say 100% this didn’t happen or that didn’t happen or something. God forbid you’re wrong and there is a victim involved, right? I haven’t read everything, but the stories are mostly told by people who I would not trust with a dime. It seems so heavily weighted in that way.”
Penn defended Allen when the podcast host noted that the allegations against the director were from his adopted children.
“I am not aware of any clinical psychologist or psychiatrist or anyone I ever heard talk about the subject of pedophilia that in 80 years of life it only happens once. I am not aware of that,” Penn said.
He added, “When people try to associate his much younger girlfriends, right or wrong is not the conversation here. Post-puberty consensual stuff is a different conversation.”
Penn also said, “I just think that whatever is the worst of people’s suspicions about him, just check them with the facts separate from the [#MeToo] movement and all those who benefited from that. Let’s just take a second is all I’m saying. I see he is not proven guilty, so I take him as innocent. I would work with him in a heartbeat.”
The post Sean Penn Says He’d Work With Woody Allen “In A Heartbeat”: “He Is Not Proven Guilty, So I Take Him As Innocent” appeared first on Deadline.
