Actress Robin Wright Penn and her husband, Sean Penn _300
“There’s a bit of a resurgence happening, a bit of a re-birthing,” she says, admitting that she may be getting these roles precisely because she’s been out of the spotlight and safe from the typecasting which may have ensued.
Now she wants to continue taking on challenging roles and has already agreed to work again with The Private Lives Of Pippa Lee’s writer and director Rebecca Miller, who she describes as “an original”.
She would even like to do some travelling, and is prepared to rough it.
“I want to travel more,” she says dreamily. “I always did travel before I had kids, around Europe – there are a lot of places I want to go. I want to do South America. I would rough it while I went down the Amazon – definitely.”
Whether she’ll include husband Sean in those plans is not known. The couple have had a rocky year, with him filing for divorce then retracting the petition immediately. He has since pulled out of two film projects in order to spend more time at home, reportedly to patch things up with Robin, but she refuses to be drawn on the matter.
“Thank God somebody’s staying with the kids,” is her only response – said in jest – to the news.
But one thing is for sure, Robin will not play the victim.
Talking about playing her character Pippa, who splits with her husband during the film, the actress says: “During rehearsals I remember saying, ‘I don’t want to go into the victim’ because you’ve seen what’s been inflicted on Pippa. I said I didn’t want to play that victim that wallows in the, ‘Oh woe is me and I never had what I wanted out of life’.”
In fact, Robin seems stronger than ever and she says she’s ready to take on the world.
“You know when you’re young, you’re not scared, you don’t have that fear? You haven’t had those experiences that caused the fear of what may come? I think I’m going back to that non-fear place. It’s weird, it just happened right before Pippa. I just thought, ’What are you wasting your time for? Just go for it, just do.”’
* The Private Lives Of Pippa Lee opens nationwide on July 10.
