After 11 years of marriage and a total of 17 years together, actors Sean Penn and Robin Wright Penn are getting a divorce.
According to People magazine, Wright Penn, 41, cited irreconcilable differences in divorce papers that she filed on December 21. Penn’s publicist, Mara Buxbaum, has confirmed the split. The couple has two teenage children, Dylan Frances and Hopper Jack, and both parents are seeking joint custody. No other details were immediately revealed, however.
In the October issue of Vogue magazine this year, 47-year-old Penn stated in an interview that “we have a good marriage, but I’ve always been scared to talk about it because by the time I get home this afternoon, never mind by the time your magazine comes out, things can… shift.”
For her part, Wright Penn once told the Los Angeles Times that she provided a calming influence over her infamously ill-tempered husband and that he in turn raised her self-confidence. “He helped me to believe that I could be strong and stand up for myself,” she told the paper.
The couple met on the set of the 1990 mob film State of Grace, shortly after Penn’s first divorce from pop superstar Madonna. That stormy marriage was notorious partly for Penn’s violent outbursts against the media coverage. Although Penn and Wright Penn briefly split up in the mid-’90s — during which time Penn dated singer-songwriter Jewel and even directed one of her videos — they married in 1996. They have been living in Ross, California, and the marriage has remained free of photographer-punching.
Penn won an Academy Award in 2004 for his performance as a vengeful father in Mystic River; he has also been Oscar-nominated for acclaimed roles in Dead Man Walking and Sweet and Lowdown. He recently directed Into the Wild, which is getting plenty of awards buzz this year, and in January he will begin work in Gus Van Sant’s Milk.
Wright Penn, for whom this is the second divorce as well, is best known for starring in the 1987 cult classic The Princess Bride, and she received a Golden Globe nomination for her role in Forrest Gump in 1995. Other films in which she has co-starred with her soon-to-be-ex-husband include She’s So Lovely and Hurlyburly. She’s currently onscreen in the movie Beowulf.
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