Key Points
Sean Penn said he “should quit and become an accountant” after seeing young stars’ work.
He also admitted that he hasn’t seen any of Timothée Chalamet’s movies.
Penn estimated that Jennifer Lawrence is also the last Hollywood movie star to exist.
Sean Penn is banking on The Hunger Games actress Jennifer Lawrence being the last bankable movie star in Hollywood, the two-time Oscar-winning actor has revealed.
The 64-year-old appeared on the most recent episode of The Louis Theroux Podcast to discuss his career and the current state of the film industry.
“Who do I consider a peer? I’m seeing performances from some young actors where I feel like I should quit and become an accountant, they’re so good,” Penn told Theroux, who named Dune actor Timothée Chalamet upon inquiring about specific stars.
“I haven’t seen that movie yet,” he said of Chalamet’s Oscar-nominated turn as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown. “I actually haven’t seen his movies yet.”
Later, Penn estimated that “there’s no such thing as a movie star anymore,” before saying that the phenomenon has crossed over into the world of television as well, as he admitted he hasn’t seen Game of Thrones despite it becoming such a big intellectual property.
“It’s like, people are hanging out in their sections of the library. We all used to be in the same library, and [found out] what was special to everybody. I have a romantic memory of that. It’s moved on since then,” Penn added. “There won’t be… you’re not going to have a Warren Beatty, it’s not going to happen.”
Theroux then estimated that Chalamet is the younger generation’s equivalent to Beatty, who became one of the biggest stars of a bygone era in Hollywood.
While Penn admitted he lives in a “certain level of reclusiveness,” he suggested that Leonardo DiCaprio still became a bankable star “before they stopped” cranking out celebrities who could sell tickets on name alone.
Murray Close/Lionsgate Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss in ‘The Hunger Games’
“I think the movie star manufacturer ran out around Jennifer Lawrence’s time or something,” Penn continued. “She’s probably the last movie star, yeah.”
Since making her film debut in 2008, Lawrence’s trajectory skyrocketed after she scored her first Oscar nomination for her performance in 2010’s prestige drama Winter’s Bone.
Between 2011 and 2012, she hit big with a trio of high-profile projects, including two blockbusters (X-Men: First Class and the first of several The Hunger Games blockbusters) and Silver Linings Playbook, the comedy that would win Lawrence an Oscar for Best Actress.
Recently, Lawrence fronted the 2023 comedy No Hard Feelings to moderate success, with the comedy grossing just under $90 million worldwide. She’ll next appear in Lynne Ramsay’s Die, My Love, which is set to premiere Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival in France.
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Penn’s last appearance in a widely released film was 2024’s Daddio, which earned $1.9 million globally. Prior to that, he had a supporting role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Oscar-nominated 2021 movie Licorice Pizza.
Listen to Penn discuss the current state of Hollywood in the podcast episode above.
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