Sean Penn, 64, told an interviewer that selfies are a “soul-sucker” — and then reached for the most extreme hypothetical he could find to prove the point.
Asked whether there was anyone for whom he would make an exception, Penn reportedly said he wouldn't do one even with a “Holocaust grandmother.” The remark, published June 10, spread across social media within the afternoon.
Penn is a two-time Academy Award winner, an activist with documented relief work in Haiti and Ukraine, and a man who has given dozens of interviews in which the subject of his own image has come up at length. He is not, by most accounts, a reluctant public figure.
The “Holocaust grandmother” framing drew the loudest response — critics noting that the hypothetical did less to illuminate Penn's philosophy on digital self-portraiture than it did to illustrate the specific register he reaches for when trying to sound serious.
Penn has not issued a clarification. His publicist had not responded to requests for comment as of publication.
The selfie, for the record, typically takes between three and eight seconds.