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search) Set in 1974, the film stars Penn as the real-life Samuel Byck, a business failure who blamed his shortcomings on societal corruption and attempte d to kill President Nixon by hijacking a plane to crash it into the Whit e House. Penn, 44, who had been developing the project for two years before Sept. If anything, it might have encouraged it," Penn said in an i nterview. The dismay Byck felt over revelations of government deceit as Watergate u nfolded is relevant today amid allegations that President Bush misled Am ericans by fanning fears of future terrorism to gain support for the Ira q war, Penn said. The film follows Penn's Academy Award-winning performance in 2003's "Myst ic River." Penn who co-stars with Nicole Kidman in the upcoming United Nations thril ler "The Interpreter" and a remake of the political drama "All the King' s Men," sat down with The Associated Press at last fall's Toronto Intern ational Film Festival to discuss the Oscars, politics and the seven minu tes during which Bush sat without acting in a Florida school room after learning of the Sept.
AP: You showed up to accept your Academy Award, but you skipped the Oscar s the three previous times you were nominated. Penn: I don't know, for some reason I cannot share the whole allure of th e thing or equate it to something that really makes a statement of who y ou are as an actor. You know y ou're going to get more money and all that stuff. T he horror of the Academy Awards is what the press does leading up to it to make it a popular TV show. Where they'll actually make it like it's a n arm-wrestling event between two actors. That becomes very petty, and t hat's something that's embarrassing to follow up with accepting the invi tation to the party. AP: You were in your early teens when Watergate came up. Penn: I had grown up in, I would say, a socially left home, and so at tha t age, I think a lot of your politics are dictated by that. But at that time, I had come into a history class wit h a history teacher who got me pretty interested in government. I think it was the first thing I really paid a lot of attention to other than th e war. And this wasn't the most crooked thing I'd sensed in him. AP: Has corruption in government grown worse since Nixon? I t hink you'd have a very difficult time Watergating George Bush. The spin and the manipulation of media, the distraction of planned emergencies, i s on a whole new level. And there's a kind of general lack of diversity of principle within the Congress. So I think when you can get something like the Patriot Act passed, it would be kind of like child's play to pu ll off a Watergate ... Penn: That philosophy that sells best in a sound bite reigns, so very bla ck-and-white, dramatic, hyperbolic ideas are going to get through. The o ther thing is, you have such demand in immediate storytelling today. Whe re investigative journalists covering the Vietnam War, a correspondent t here would play detective, and one event in and of itself was rarely the story. It was connected to things that played out over a week, two week s, while that journalist put together his piece. Now, it's, "Get that th ing on the wire service by tonight. Yet there are journalists who a re still trying very hard, people who are very good. They're up against that spin machine, and it's a tough one. AP: What did you think of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11"? Penn: All of that footage how long was it, seven plus minutes (when Bus h sat in the classroom)? I think it speak s very specifically to something that not everybody has.
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