'Fast Times' Actor Has Courted Controversy

I'll always remember Sean Penn as "Jeff Spicoli," no matter what that dude does.

Here's more on him, at WSJ, "Sean Penn’s Interview With El Chapo Latest in Long History of Controversial Meetings":

Sean Penn shot to fame playing a high-school stoner who wanted to do anything but engage with the world.

Now, more than 30 years after his breakthrough role in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” the two-time Oscar winner is as well known for his off-screen political activism as he is for his intense on-screen performances.

Mr. Penn’s meeting with Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, revealed on Saturday, is the latest example of the 55-year-old actor inviting controversy by making high-profile visits with figures who are at odds with the U.S. government.

Mr. Penn’s interview with the drug kingpin follows the actor’s style of reporting—sparing no detail about the arrangements getting there or his emotional impressions of the man before him. “In what would be a seven-hour sit-down, I saw him without that smile only in brief flashes. As has been said of many notorious men, he has an indisputable charisma,” wrote Mr. Penn.

Over the past 20 years, Mr. Penn, with a mix of outrage and irreverence, has traveled to countries about to be attacked by the U.S., pledged support to Communist leaders who decry America and criticized the U.S. government for its handling of domestic affairs.

The “El Chapo” meeting, recounted by Mr. Penn in an article for Rolling Stone magazine, isn’t the first time the actor has taken on a provocative assignment for a publication.

In 2008, Mr. Penn recounted his meetings with Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez and Cuban president Raúl Castro for The Nation magazine.

Mr. Penn’s dispatches read like a travelogue sprinkled with diplomatic purpose; he writes of having mechanical difficulties on the plane ride there and then of asking Mr. Castro if he’d be willing to meet with President Obama.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Penn said Sunday the actor wasn’t commenting at this time...

A classic Hollywood useful idiot.

Still more, FWIW.