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10/28/09 - The Guardian (London) - Sean Penn seeks interview with Fidel
Castro in Cuba for Vanity Fair


Sean Penn seeks interview with Fidel Castro in Cuba for Vanity Fair

• Communist leader has not spoken to press in three years

• Oscar winner visited Island of Youth yesterday

Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent

Sean Penn visits Isla de la Juventud in Havana. Photograph: Mayangdi
Inzaulgarat/EPA

The actor Sean Penn has flown to Cuba to chase what would be the biggest
scoop of his career as a part-time journalist: an interview with Fidel
Castro.

The Oscar winner, who last year bagged interviews with Raúl Castro and Hugo
Chávez, is reportedly on assignment for Vanity Fair in his quest to meet
Cuba's former president.

In a sign of Havana's approval the communist party newspaper Granma covered
Penn's visit yesterday to the Island of Youth, where he visited a gallery
and met artists.

According to the online magazine tmz.com Penn hopes to ask Fidel about
Cuba's evolving relationship with the Obama administration.

The interview - which has not been confirmed - would be a coup for the
Hollywood star's brand of activist journalism. No western journalist has
seen let alone interviewed the 83-year-old leader since an intestinal
illness forced him from public view three years ago. Fidel stepped aside
from the presidency but remains influential in Cuba - and an iconic,
enigmatic figure abroad.

Penn, an outspoken liberal and anti-war activist, took a break from filming
to visit Iraq as a journalist in 2004. He followed up with a visit to Iran
the following year and then befriended Chávez.

Venezuela's socialist president, who seldom gives interviews, gave ample
access to Penn and arranged an interview with Raúl Castro, Cuba's even more
interview-shy president. The stories were published in The Nation and the
Huffington Post.

Critics say the actor is too soft in the interviews and should leave
journalism to professionals. "Why does someone like Penn think he can do
this job, which isn't his job?" asked The New Yorker.

Chávez and the Castros also opened their doors to Oliver Stone, another
Hollywood leftist. He made sympathetic documentaries about his subjects, a
contrast with most US media hostility to the Latin American presidents.