Sean Penn has seen it all in his long career. His role of Jeff Spicoli is one of the most iconic roles of the 80s. He was a tabloid cover fixture in his days as Madonna’s husband. He has won two Oscars and the prestigious Peace Summit Award in 2012 at the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates. His next film is The Gunman, in which he plays a former Special Forces soldier and military contractor suffering from PTSD who must go on the run from London to Barcelona and across Europe in order to clear his name. Now he can check off being an action hero from his bucket list, or as he puts it, a ‘geriaction’ hero.

Had you been wanting to star in an action movie?

I’m more of a movie to movie kind of guy. Harrison Ford has made a career of playing roles like that [in action movies]. I have a phrase for it, ‘geriaction.’ There’s a lot of action in this movie, but it’s not a ‘wink at the audience’ movie. This is played more straight in that there are consequences to the violence and that appealed to me. I’ve liked some of the buddy comedy action movies and though I’ve enjoyed them, they were more of a guilty pleasure. This was just something different for me and appealed to me on its own terms.

Tell us about being one of the co-writers of the script.

Pierre [Morel, director of The Gunman] and I sort of traveled down some of the same roads. While he was busy choosing locations and actors, et cetera, I was in rooms trying to bring some authenticity to some of the NGO [Non-Governmental Organization – a non-profit, voluntary citizens’ group] stuff. I was working with consultants on the military side. I was working on projects with special forces and former special forces. You want to make sure you are adhering as close as possible to the reality of it.

The brief surfing scene in the movie reminds the audience of your Southern California roots and brings back memories of your association with other young, famous actors at the time like Rob Lowe and Charlie Sheen. When did you become serious about becoming an actor?

Just to set the record straight, I didn’t know Rob Lowe at all though it’s been written about quite a bit. I was aware of him as being a kid actor. I knew Charlie Sheen only through my younger brother [actor Chris Penn]. Actually, I think Charlie could do a ‘geriaction’ movie. But I really just knew those kids through the neighborhood. They started working with my brother on some films and I then got involved and was fascinated or excited by that.

What do you like about shooting on location in places like Barcelona.

Many years ago, I was going to make a movie with John Cassavetes and I thought it was clear he wanted the movie to be set in a suburb of New York and when I mentioned this, he said, ‘no, no, no, no, we pick the town with the best dressed drunks. Barcelona is that town.’ It’s diverse and it’s a great place to make a movie.

Though the movie isn’t specifically about the Congo, it does shine a light on some of the obstacles that it, and other countries, face. Was that important to you?

The movie might function in a broader way on a subconscious level in that if someone younger sees this movie and they see a report on the Congo or some similar situation somewhere else where there is conflict over resources and people are paying the price for it, their ears might perk up. This movie isn’t going to change the world, but I thought it was a good real world reflection.

How do you get in the mindset of a killer?

What’s interesting to me is that there’s a disconnect being trained as a facilitator or an operator. The training is done to depersonalize it all. Of course in the movie, things get personalized as things do in the real world.

How do you reconcile your personal views on gun violence with gun violence being portrayed as entertainment?

Do you have an assumption on my personal views on gun violence?

I was basing it off of other quotes that I’ve read.

The problem with quotes that you’ve read is that they have been written largely inaccurately. We all understand as readers and as writers that we are limited by what’s sellable and so on. [The media] is at the worst stage ever in my recollection. That question opens up a complicated issue. I didn’t feel any issues about [gun violence] and that opens up another conversation.

What does it mean to be a producer when you’re also the star of the film and one of the writers as well?

It means I can keep [prolific action film producer] Joel Silver at bay (laughs). That’s the only reason for it (laughs again).

This movie sort of overlaps some of your humanitarian work. Was that a conscious decision on your part?

We are in the midst of a record-breaking crisis right now with the number of displaced people and places in conflict. I have a feeling that this will be filtering into a lot of filmmaking and more scripts will have aspects of these stories because they’re surrounding us and affecting us directly more and more. There was probably a seed of that in the story that interested me because of my personal investment.  I think stories like that will become ubiquitous over the next few years.

With all of the action and stunts, were there any accidents?

We got away without anything serious happening. I did have an extraordinarily achy body by the end of the film though.

How were you able to cast Tony award winner Mark Rylance, who’s a classic stage actor, to do a movie like this?

I sank my teeth in his ankle about 20 years ago and I’ve been slowly dragging him to the edge of the stage so I could pull him into a movie. The timing just worked out on this one after incrementally dragging him.

Director Pierre Morel has made movies about characters out to avenge people he cares about in movies like Taken. In The Gunman, your character has to cross a line as a sniper. What is it like to play a character where you have to depersonalize to protect the people you care about?

It’s an interesting movie in that way because it’s a movie about a very conflicted man killing very bad men. This is very different than the Liam Neeson movies. Here you have a six foot four, melodically voiced, masculine figure who is a very good man fighting strictly for his children. I don’t really see the comparison [laughs].

When making this movie, were there any particular action movies that inspired you for your role?

I thought we were going for a Boyhood type of movie [laughs].

On Sunday afternoons, there are the big headlines about the number one movie at the box office. How do you feel about your career when the box office receipts are such big news? Is that something you are concerned with?

I can say that I have a 35-year history that’s immunized me so that if I tried to guess what movie would be popular with an audience, I would be wrong every single time. It’s not that I wouldn’t invest in the culture [of predicting box office successes], it’s just that I don’t have that skill set. I really, really, really don’t like most of the films that become popular. I feel alienated from the world that embraces them, so that doesn’t help. I don’t really think about it because I don’t know how to.

What is your response to some of the backlash you received from your immigration joke when you presented your friend, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarrito, his Best Director Oscar for Birdman?

The people who were critical could probably be a little more cheerful. I think if you identify with fundamentalist thoughts, if you are focused on finding a common enemy, then you are likely to miss irony and render yourself a foolish individual. What’s most offensive is creating self-censorship in people’s interactions. When someone as special as Alejandro makes a film as special as Birdman was and if he has a friend who’s on the stage, then maybe that friend wants to let him know privately for a moment before the room knows that he won. And he did. There’s a history with us and I wanted him to know first. I don’t care what other people think.

We have a diversity problem. If you don’t recognize the irony that we don’t get great movies like Birdman if we don’t encourage diversity in this country. There’s a part of the movie business that I always thought was important – you always have to consider the possibility that everyone else is wrong.

There was some laughter at the press screening during scenes that might not have been shot as comedic scenes. Does that ever worry you?

I’ve laughed at things I found out later I wasn’t supposed to laugh at. A movie is supposed to be reacted to by the audience, not by me.

Do you hope that this movie is a success and can turn into a possible franchise?

I don’t allow myself to think about that. On this movie, everyone worked hard. I have projects I want to direct and that’s what I’m focused on.

How did you film the surfing scene?

There were a lot of cuts [laughs]. We had a very short window in which to shoot that scene in the right light.

You mentioned you want to direct more. Do you still enjoy acting as much as you did or would you prefer to move over to directing?

Whenever I’m on the railroad track in the tunnel, I’m going to run as fast as I can to stay ahead of the train. Whether it’s enjoyable or not, what’s satisfying is working with people who are working as hard as you are. When you finish a project and you’re proud of the work and your relationships are good and you respect the people you worked with, then you think, ‘that might be a nice thing to do again.’ What I would say is this, I can enjoy acting only if I’m working with a director who I’m in sync with.

Can you tell us more about the Haitian Relief Organization you founded after the 2010 earthquake?

We started with three American relief workers and seven doctors with the intention of distributing morphine and ketamine to trauma centers and hospitals. It transformed into an international relief organization with over 350 permanent staff members. It’s a development organization that focuses on relocation [for displaced people], education, health and engineering for rebuilding devastated areas. The first camp we had had 60,000 people and they’ve all been relocated. Now we’re working on seven other camps. We were working with around 1.6 million people who had been displaced and now we’re down to about 65,000 total in the country.

The Gunman opens in theaters March 20.