Last we heard from Sean Penn, he was panicking about Kate del Castillo’s El Chapo documentary. The documentary has been released and beyond his whinging, there hasn’t been a huge amount of buzz (this could be because we are in such a disastrous news cycle all the time, or because Netflix has so much content that it’s kind of lost in the shuffle). Either way, Sean doesn’t seem to be in imminent danger.
New pictures show him looking jacked while playing with some puppies and spending time with his girlfriend, Leila George. (How is it that not even puppies soften Sean Penn?) She is 25. And most interesting, at least to me, is that she is the daughter of Vincent D’Onofrio. And yes I’ve been sleeping on this – other outlets have covered it going back a year. Lainey wrote about it in October 2016 and I completely missed it because my head is up my ass. (I was so perplexed about not registering this relationship, I had to look back at my calendar – was I away? Sick? Was I dazzled by her red wig in the photos?)
But now that I’m finally caught up (it only took a year) can I take a second to say… Sean Penn is dating Vincent D’Onofrio’s daughter?!?!?!?!
Vincent is 58, Sean is 57. Leila George (as she is known professionally) is 25 now (24 when they started dating). Sean’s daughter Dylan is 26. So Sean is a year younger than Leila’s dad and Leila is a year younger than Sean’s daughter (as Lainey pointed out last year). I wonder how Vincent feels about it. They’ve both been working actors for decades, so they must have crossed paths at some point, right? At a party or an awards show or through friends. What does Vincent think of the mercurial Sean Penn?
Vincent and Leila seem to be tight -- he recently directed her in a film. Leila’s also worked with Sean, narrating a book with him in 2016 and the robotic meeting at LACMA last year. There hasn’t been much more since then, so maybe everyone is super happy and low-key, which is possible, right?
.@imseanpenn, w/ @leila_george, Frances McDormand + Ari Fliakos, bring @PappyPariah's #BobHoney to life. Get it FREE https://t.co/jyHYVsCRH4 pic.twitter.com/wvoaMuoFzT
— Audible (@audible_com) October 19, 2016
Directing my daughter @leila_george in #TheKid @NewMexicoFilm pic.twitter.com/F124Du1ovR
— Vincent D'Onofrio (@vincentdonofrio) October 17, 2017
I’ll be honest, the only reason I’m mildly interested in this is because of the Vincent D’Onofrio connection. I checked his Twitter to see if I could find any clues about his opinion on the relationship, but there was nothing. He’s political and occasionally posts about films he enjoys. He recently complimented Atomic Blonde, but I genuinely think the Charlize connection is a coincidence.
A great film on so many levels. One being. The main character is female yet (correctly) is a approached as a person not a femme fatale. https://t.co/hRmWAM0qIE
— Vincent D'Onofrio (@vincentdonofrio) November 6, 2017
Perhaps my initial excitement was premature. After some thorough digging, I’ve concluded that Sean Penn dating Vincent D’Onofrio’s daughter hasn’t yielded much gossip. At least not so far.
Attached - Sean Penn at a charity event in Nashville last month.