Superpower director Sean Penn recently took time in an interview with Deadline to put Russian President Vladimir Putin on blast. While promoting his new documentary about the war in Ukraine, now streaming on Paramount+, he called Putin a  “a gangster with nuclear weapons.” 

He also commended Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on his quick response to Russia’s invasion of the country, saying, “The pursuit of patriotism, it is the courage of moral clarity where there’s chaos, it is what Zelenskyy brings to the party. It is what we saw when he spoke at the UN.”

For Superpower, which Penn co-directed with Aaron Kaufman, he traveled to Ukraine several times. However, the film came about long before the invasion or war had ever started; Penn says that his original idea was to find out how Zelenskyy went from comedian to president of the country. “I thought after the kind of throwing yourself around the world in harsh places, this would be kind of a lighthearted tale,” Penn recalled with a touch of irony. “Maybe that’s what I was in the mood to do at that time, and it wouldn’t be a heavy lift because I had carpentry projects I wanted to finish around my house. I didn’t want to spend all my time doing it. And then it turned into something, on its own, much more.”

Penn also called on the Biden administration to show more support for Ukraine. “I think that [President Biden] deserves the legacy that he will get by committing these assets in an absolutely robust way now,” Penn said. “And I do think it’ll actually be politically advantageous to any candidate that might do that, whether they’re Republican or Democrat, because this is an unambiguous war.”

Sean Penn’s full interview will be available on Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast, premiering October 3.