Actor and director Sean Penn attends a press briefing at the President’s Office in Kyiv, Ukraine, February 24, 2022. Press Office of the President of Ukraine / Distribution via REUTERS / Photo
March 1 – Days after visiting the Ukrainian capital Kyiv to film scenes from his documentary on the Russian invasion, Hollywood actor and director Sean Penn found himself among thousands of refugees fleeing to Poland, joining the exodus on foot.
Penn, 61, posted a photo on his Twitter account Monday showing the movie star carrying a backpack and luggage on wheels as he drove along the road to a number of cars in the distance.
“My colleagues and I drove miles to the Polish border after leaving our car on the side of the road,” Penn said in a photo tweet. “Almost all the cars in this photo carry only women and children, most without any traces of luggage or a car, which is their only valuable possession.”
The tweet did not explain why the Oscar-winning actor and his companions were forced to abandon their vehicle.
A Los Angeles spokeswoman, Mara Bucksbaum, told Reuters in an email Tuesday that Penn had “passed safely from Ukraine.” She declined to answer other questions about his whereabouts or the circumstances surrounding his departure from Ukraine.
Penn was in Kyiv last Thursday, where he attended a press briefing at the office of President Vladimir Zelensky on the first day of Russia’s invasion, filming a documentary chronicle of the crisis, a statement from Zelensky’s cabinet said at the time. Read more
“Sean Penn is among those who support Ukraine in Ukraine today. Our country is grateful to him for such an act of courage and honesty,” the statement said.
It says Penn interviewed Ukrainian political and military figures, as well as journalists, as part of a production he originally visited Ukraine in November.
In a statement last week, the Oscar-winning actor praised “Mystic River” and “Milk,” praised the Ukrainian people as a “historical symbol of courage” and called Ukraine “the spearhead for the democratic embrace of dreams.” “
“If we allow her to fight alone, our soul as America is lost,” Penn wrote.
Penn, whose directorial credits include Into the Wild and The Crossing Guard, is also known for his political activism and involvement in various humanitarian causes, including efforts to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, the 2010 Haiti earthquake and floods in Pakistan in 2012
He made headlines in 2016 when Rolling Stone magazine published an interview that Pen secretly conducted with Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman at his refuge in the jungle before the arrest of the cartel boss.
Penn is producing a documentary about Ukraine for Vice Studios, an American-Canadian company for digital media and broadcasting, according to Hollywood’s Variety.
Report by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Edited by Sandra Mahler
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