Looks like Sean Penn’s ready to get back on the board. Back in 1982, before he was a household name and two-time Oscar winner (that’s “Mystic River” and “Milk,” in case you’ve forgotten), Penn smoked and surfed his way through “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” as stoner Jeff Spicoli.
Variety reports that the actor is now in talks to take on a project based on legendary surfer Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz as producer and star. Joining him on the team are recent “Bad Lieutenant” producers Alan and Gabe Polsky as well as screenwriter Paul Feldsher (“Waking Up in Reno”). Curiously, this isn’t the only surf film Penn has been linked to as earlier this year, he was in talks for a supporting role in “Mavericks” a biopic of Jay Moriarty with Curtis Hanson to direct, but he has passed on the part.
Paskowitz’s life was one of many talents: a Stanford Med grad, he became disenchanted with medicine and moved to Israel, where he attempted to join the army but was denied. Instead, he came back to the U.S. to become a full-time professional surfer. His family was known as ‘The First Family of Surfing,’ living together in a camper van on the road and often struggling to make ends meet. Doc Paskowitz’s life was the subject of the documentary “Surfwise,” which showed briefly in 2008.
Penn has been out of the limelight for a while, after splitting up with Robin Wright last year, his wife of 11 years. For months, he’s been living in Haiti working in the island nation’s relief efforts as part of a nonprofit he founded, Haitian Relief Organization. He’ll next be seen in Doug Liman’s “Fair Game” as outed-CIA agent Valerie Plame’s husband Joseph Wilson and hopefully before the year is out we’ll see his performance in Terrence Malick’s highly anticipated “The Tree of Life.”