People

By Rebecca Winters Keegan

Q&A ROBIN WRIGHT PENN

Robin Wright Penn stars in the drama Breaking and Entering and Hounddog, the Dakota Fanning film that recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival

You play the mother of an autistic child. What did you learn about parenting?

As a mother, you give yourself license to be impatient with your child because they should know better. But in that situation you can't afford to because you break the trust you desperately need.

Your kids are teens now. Have they started distancing themselves?

They're clearly their own people. They're so convicted in what they believe.

I can think of someone else in your house who's convicted: your husband Sean Penn.

That's an understatement.

Some people object to Dakota's playing a sexually abused girl in Hounddog.

It's uncomfortable watching it. But guess what? It happens every day. Be uncomfortable, but you're not gonna censor it.

You're in a motion-capture version of Beowulf. Any changes to your appearance?

I said, "Can you give me a full C cup?" That would be amazing.

Is it in Old English?

No, we tried to find an accent we could all do. We decided to imitate Anthony Hopkins.

Why raise your family outside Hollywood?

I was carjacked with my kids in my car in my driveway. Within a week we moved to Northern California.

What's it like when the Penns go out to dinner?

Normal. We're in a community of 2,000 people. They probably don't even like us.

SANDSTORM OVER SAHARA

Ironically it's the forgettable movies that tend to play best in the courts. Author Clive Cussler and Denver financier Philip Anschutz are suing each other over the 2005 action dud Sahara, the film that led to the romance between stars MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY and PENELOPE CRUZ. Anschutz, who paid Cussler $10 million for the book rights, says the author lied about how popular his books were, rejected other writers' scripts without reading them and bad-mouthed the movie to the press before its release. Cussler says producers reneged on a contract that awarded him more control over the film. McConaughey, a producer, is on the trial's witness list. The parties do agree on some things (like that the desert daredevil movie lost more than $100 million). And that none of this is Cruz's fault.

DEARLY BELOVED FANS OF FOOTBALL

For once, it was worth sending someone else to refill the chips. At Super Bowl XLI, PRINCE reminded viewers what a halftime show should be--extravagant, chock-full of more hits than the game and with a fully functioning, Miami-hued wardrobe. Under a hard rain rendered, yes, purple by stage lights, the 48-year-old rock star unloosed a medley of his own songs and covers. Then, just after the marching band came on and everyone began to marvel that the miniature maestro of Minneapolis could be so family friendly, he and his glyph-shaped guitar cast a suggestive silhouette onto a giant billowing sheet. It was after all, Prince. If you want subtle, watch golf.

FIRST LOOK CHEADLE JOCKEYS FOR POSITION

DON CHEADLE seems to be finding a niche: icons. He has already handled Sammy Davis Jr. and Hotel Rwanda's Paul Rusesabagina and has been cast as Haitian rebel leader Toussaint L'Ouverture. Then there's Ralph Waldo (Petey) Greene, the Washington disc jockey he plays in July's Talk to Me. Greene, an ex-con, took to the airwaves after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination to soothe a restless city. "Petey got into a lot of trouble with his mouth, and he got out of a lot of trouble with his mouth," says Cheadle. He also paved the way for another big talker with hair--Howard Stern. And don't expect Cheadle to apologize for the other loud thing in the movie, the clothes. "That was an era," he says, "when people really dressed."