Sean Penn knew Steve Bannon before he was the infamous White House Chief Strategist. While on Conan, Penn shared his first impression of Bannon from the time he produced one of Penn's films in the '90s. Spoiler alert: He doesn't have anything nice to say.
"I would say he exerted the same level of charm that he does today," said a sarcastic Penn, who recalled Bannon bringing on "cheerleader looking" make-up assistants from New York. "I noticed that without any need for them, we had two kind of cheerleader looking new make-up assistants on the call sheet that as the director of the movie, I had not called for," he said. "And yet it was on my very minimal budget that they were being paid. And they weren't local, they were from New York." So for first impressions, Penn thought of him as a "crook."
But the Bannon today looks a bit different now than he did then—and not in a good way, according to Penn.
"I didn't even know it was the same Steve Bannon until I looked at him closely and imagined the Steve Bannon I knew but with the toxins of the soul so deteriorate and bloat," he said. "I don't think you can age like that without hating people."
As for the make-up artists, which of course is the only detail Conan zeroed in on, it turns out they were "every bit as good as the West Wing today," said Penn...and he wasn't talking about the hit TV show.
Penn's been on a heavy talk show run this week as he smoked a cig on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and stopped by The Daily Show With Trevor Noah. But this time around, he's not talking about an upcoming film. Instead, he's promoting his debut novel, Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff, a fiction novel that satirically throws shots at a Donald Trump-like character.
