Blogs and Stories
My Date With Sean Penn
Excerpts from my diary: How I ended up acting opposite Penn and (a nude) James Franco on the set of Gus Van Sant’s new movie, Milk.
I’ve been producing films and TV shows since the 1970s–Father of the Bride, Buffy the Vampire Slayer–but I’d never acted in a major motion picture until I received a call asking if I’d like a part in Gus Van Sant’s Harvey Milk biopic, Milk. The very last thing I thought I’d ever do was to become an actor. Here’s how it happened.
Francine Maisler, the famous and brilliant casting director (she cast Spiderman) said to Gus, "We should get someone who looks like Howard Rosenman, who speaks like Howard Rosenman, and who has Howard Rosenman's vibe…to play David Goodstein.” Goodstein was a rich, gay New York Jew who moved to San Francisco in the early ‘70s and became a political kingmaker. He and Harvey Milk (played by Sean Penn) did not get along. My scenes would be with Sean.
Click To View Trailer
Gus says to Francine: “Can he act?"
Francine calls me: "Have you ever acted before?"
"Yes," I answer. “I played Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady at camp when I was 14. It was in Hebrew.” Francine hired me for the part. Gus, Francine, Dan Jinks, Bruce Cohen and Michael London called to tell me I was hired for the part.
Over the next three weeks my greatest and closest friends, Peter Spears and Susan Landau, spent hours running lines with me, endlessly giving me hints and intentions and motivations. I'm in business with Al Pacino now; we're developing Betsy and Napoleon about Napoleon's exile in St. Helena. The day I heard about the part in Milk I happened to have a meeting with Al at the brand new monumental Pharaohnic CAA office building. I was crazed and nervous and couldn’t process the fact that I was going to be acting with one of the great players in American cinema, Sean Penn. So I hesitantly said to Al, "When you played the part of Roy Cohn in Angels in America, did you study him and research him and try to imitate him?" He squinted and peered up at me with a cocked head, and in that low rumble and inimitable voice of his he answered, "Kid, they bought Howard Rosenman. Play Howard Rosenman."
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
I too, would like a job that involved a nude james franco.
Howard,
a young man who could play Henry Higgins in Hebrew at 14 was destined for the big screen!
This was lovely...one of the finest things I've read on this site so far.
Sean did actually play gay once before in the Beaver Trilogy where he lipsyncs to Olivia Newton-John's "Please Don't Keep Me Waiting" -- it's pretty amazing.
Mr. Rosenman,
I just read your article "Suddenly Last Summer" (about your obsession with Liz Taylor) in the Los Angeles Time Magazine. It was a very refreshing and nostalgic article that reminded me of my childhood movie obesessions...Plus those photographs of a young and beautiful Elizabeth Taylor are quite a rare sight! (esp. the one where she is laying on a rock while a man is painting in the background.)
Thank you for your great articles!
K
Thank you.
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