&34;It was just one page after another that skipped convention,&34; the twotime Oscar winner says of his first readthrough. Sean Penn was so captivated by One B

"It was just one page after another that skipped convention," the two-time Oscar winner says of his first read-through.

Sean Penn was so captivated by One Battle After Another script he read it naked in one sitting

"It was just one page after another that skipped convention," the two-time Oscar winner says of his first read-through.

By Lauren Huff

Lauren Huff

Lauren Huff is an award-winning journalist and staff writer at ** with over 12 years of experience covering all facets of the entertainment industry.

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September 26, 2025 8:00 a.m. ET

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Sean Penn in 'One Battle After Another'. Credit:

- Sean Penn tells ** about the first time he read the script for *One Battle After Another* — completely naked, dripping wet, after a shower.

- Penn, who plays the absurd Col. Steven J. Lockjaw, praises Paul Thomas Anderson's script, which he says shocked him: "He's going there."

- Plus, he shares his poignant experience at the film's premiere, which he says evoked a feeling he hasn't felt since before he began acting.

The *One Battle After Another* script so enthralled Sean Penn that he read the whole thing, *uh*, naked.

Let him explain. "I was in Europe at the time, I was traveling a lot, so I took the script with me, and it took me a couple of days, and I knew [writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson] was waiting to hear," Penn tells **. "And so each day I was punishing myself over it, and I came out of a shower late one night, and I was just walking to get dressed, and I had the script sitting there, and I thought, *Okay, I'll read just one page*, and I started to read, and I don't know, half a page, a page in, I'm sitting there dripping naked on the floor reading a script until I drip-dried and finished it."

This unconventional first read-through confirmed a "sneaking suspicion" the two-time Oscar winner had long held, which was that he "was going to want to do" the film. After all, he'd known Anderson for many years, and by that point, Leonardo DiCaprio and Benicio del Toro had both already signed on for the epic action thriller.

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Still, it was Anderson's script, loosely based on *Vineland* by Thomas Pynchon, that shocked Penn into wanting to become more involved. "Paul's very diverse in this film, I had no idea what the territory of the script was until I started reading, and I remember distinctly hearing my voice in my head saying to myself, 'He's going there,'" Penn recalls. "And then it was just one page after another that skipped convention."

A lot of that convention skipping is thanks to Penn's wild character, Col. Steven J. Lockjaw. The film follows DiCaprio's Bob, a washed-up (read: frequently stoned) revolutionary who exists in a state of constant paranoia while living off the grid with his daughter, Willa (newcomer Chase Infiniti). Lockjaw is Bob's psychotic, longtime nemesis, who is obsessed with finding him and his daughter. He's also obsessed with joining a secret white supremacist cabal known as the Christmas Adventurers Club (yes, really).

Penn worked with Anderson "page by page" to develop everything from Lockjaw's walk and ridiculously wound-tight mannerisms to his hairstyle, which can best be described as the bizarre baby of a combover and a mohawk. "This was the hair for the job that I felt when I read it, and how far we'd go with it was something that Paul and I went back and forth on a little bit, but at some point, you know, we're going to have to commit," he says.

Sean Penn in 'One Battle After Another'.

The character couldn't be more different from the actor, at least in terms of ideology. Beyond his lengthy acting and directing career, Penn has also long been involved in humanitarian efforts, as well as political and social activism, the likes of which Lockjaw surely would disagree with. So, what would a meeting between Penn and Lockjaw be like?**

"That's a good question in so much as I won't answer it," he says, laughing. "Because one of the things about this movie, the reading of it that I said I did — and I should apologize for putting [the idea of] me naked in somebody's head dripping wet — but that first reading of it was my version of seeing the film for the first time, and I had such a great experience with the surprise of it that even in reflecting what that conversation would be might giveaway stuff that I wouldn't want to have taken away from me as an audience."

Speaking of an audience, the veteran actor says that he was at the film's world premiere in Los Angeles when he realized one of the greatest joys of working on *One Battle After Another*. "When I saw it the night of the premiere, I was reminded of something I probably haven't been reminded of as much since before I was in movies, which is that a movie is not a movie until the audience is in it with you," he says. "And that night, I really felt that the audience understood it as well as we did every step of the way. And that makes it a better movie still, in some way."**

Sean Penn attends the 'One Battle After Another' New York screening on Sept. 21, 2025.

Dia Dipasupil/Getty

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*One Battle After Another*, which also stars Teyana Taylor, Regina Hall, Tony Goldwyn, and more, hits theaters Friday.**

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