Sean Penn

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the Gus Van Sant directed movie will see Penn playing Milk while Damon plays his assassin Dan White, reports the BBC.


Sean Penn and Matt Damon have signed up to star in a biopic on gay 1970s San Francisco politician Harvey Milk.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the Gus Van Sant directed movie will see Penn playing Milk while Damon plays his assassin Dan White, reports the BBC.

Milk, who was assassinated in 1978, was the first openly gay city supervisor of San Francisco.

Van Sant hops to start filming the pic as soon as a distribution deal is finalised. However, the uncertain date may put a hitch in Damon’s plan to star as White.

The director has been in line to helm the biopic that is based on based on the Randy Shilts 1982 biography, ‘The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk’ for over a decade now, though Bryan Singer also expressed an interest in turning the biography into a movie two years ago.

With an aim at this, Warner Bros art-house arm, Warner Independent Pictures, brought in Singer's ‘Usual Suspects’ writer Chris McQuarrie to work on a new draft of the script.

However as McQuarrie is currently working on the Tom Cruise drama Valkyrie, production on the Singer helmed pic is not likely to start before the director begins work on his Superman sequel.