Sean Penn would work with Woody Allen again ‘in a heartbeat’

Sean Penn is open to working with controversial director Woody Allen again.

During an interview for The Louis Theroux Podcast on Tuesday, the Oscar-winning actor revealed he is willing to collaborate with the filmmaker on another project, having worked with him on the 1999 comedy-drama Sweet and Lowdown.

“I see he’s not proven guilty, so I take him as innocent, and I would work with him in a heartbeat,” he declared.

Host Theroux went on to question Penn over whether he believed Allen had a “bad rap” in Hollywood.

“I would work with him in a heartbeat, if it was the right thing… With these things, I don’t know anyone well enough to say, ‘One hundred per cent, this didn’t happen, that didn’t happen,'” the 64-year-old replied. “God forbid you are wrong and there is a victim involved in something. But boy, I find the stuff that I know about, and I haven’t read everything, the stories are mostly told by people that I wouldn’t trust with a dime. It just seems so heavily weighted in that way.”

Allen has been blacklisted in the entertainment industry since his ex-wife Mia Farrow publicly accused him of sexually abusing their adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, back in 1992. Dylan repeated the molestation allegation during a TV interview in 2018.

Allen, 89, has always maintained the claims are false. Two investigations were closed after finding no evidence against him and he has never faced charges.

And as the Annie Hall director has never been proven guilty of a crime, Penn presumes he is “innocent”.

Joking that perhaps he is “an ignoramus”, the Mystic River star continued, “I am not aware of any clinical psychologist or psychiatrist or anyone I’ve ever heard talk or spoken to around the subject of paedophilia that in 80 years of life, there’s accusations of it happening only once. I’m not aware of that.”

Representatives for Allen and Dylan, 39, have not yet responded to Penn’s comments.