Hopper Penn was almost of the victim of his father Sean Penn’s obsession with red meat.
“My dad wanted to name me Steak, the food, because he loves it so much,” Hopper, now 22, revealed in Interview magazine’s Ones to Watch issue. But Hopper says his mother Robin Wright wasn’t keen on the idea.
So where did his name Hopper come from?
“It has to do with Dennis Hopper; my dad was friendly with him and idolized him,” Hopper added. “What they told me is that I hopped in her stomach, I didn’t kick, so they went with that.”
Hopper got his acting start when his father coaxed him to star in May’s “The Last Face,” which Sean directed.
“I asked if I could PA for it,” Hopper recalled. “He said, ‘No, you’re going to act in it.’ I said no, because I’m very shy; I didn’t know how to act. He said, ‘Well, you’ll get paid.’ So I was like, ‘I’m onboard.’ After the first day, I fell in love with it.”
Being raised by two famous award-winning actors — Sean a 2004 and 2009 Oscar winner and Robin a 2014 Golden Globe winner — comes with its own set of pressures.
“My dad is a really good actor, and there are a lot of sh—ty actors, and I definitely think I’m one of them,” Hopper self-depreciated.