Robin Virginia Wright Penn (born April 8, 1966) is an American film actress who first became famous on television, playing Kelly Capwell on the soap opera Santa Barbara. She shot to stardom following her role as Buttercup in The Princess Bride. She was born Robin Virginia Gayle Wright in Dallas, Texas to Freddie Gayle Wright (a pharmaceutical executive) and Gayle Gaston (a Mary Kay cosmetics executive). On April 27, 1996, she married Sean Penn. They have two children together: son, Hopper Jack, and daughter, Dylan Frances. She was offered the role of Maid Marian in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, but had to turn it down because she was pregnant. Cary Elwes, who played Wright's character's love interest in The Princess Bride, would go on to star as Robin Hood in the parody Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Robin Wright Penn is an American actress, most famous as The Princess Bride, as the object of Tom Hanks's retarded affections in Forrest Gump, and as actor Sean Penn's wife in real life. Her parents divorced when she was two years old, but it was an amicable split. She was raised by her mother, a Mary Kay cosmetics executive, and spent summers with her father. Wright started modeling at 14, and by 15 she was dating Charlie Sheen. By 16 she was a borderline supermodel, having worked on three continents and appeared on several magazine covers. At 17, she was working in Paris when a short-tempered photographer shouted that her breasts were too small. "I was so pulverized," she says, "I considered getting a boob job, but some great friends talked me out of it." She soon quit modeling and considered becoming a nurse. Instead she got a role on the long-running soap opera Santa Barbara, where she won Soap Opera Digest's award for Outstanding Heroine in 1988, her last year on the show. When she left, her role was given to a Playboy playmate. Beyond the world of soap operas, most Americans first saw Wright as Buttercup, The Princess Bride, in 1987. She has worked steadily since, generally choosing artistic roles and avoiding big commercial movies. She turned down Jurassic Park, Batman Forever, The Firm, the sorry remake of Sabrina, and the role of Maid Marian in Kevin Costner's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. After reading the script for Born on the Fourth of July, she told writer-director Oliver Stone exactly why she wasn't interested: "I think you have a problem with women." She met Sean Penn on the set of State of Grace in 1989, and they had two children before eventually marrying in 1996. Their son, Hopper Jack, is named for family friends Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson. She has been credited as Robin Wright Penn since their marriage. They have worked together several more times, including The Crossing Guard, Loved, She's So Lovely, Hurlyburly, The Pledge, and The Last Face. The Playboys (1992) features perhaps her best performance in a generally forgotten film, worth seeking out. "If there's one aspect about the industry that bothers me more than anything else, it's this whole publicity thing. It's the invasion aspect of it that bothers me. I mean, some tabloid journalists absolutely make me sick. I'm talking about the people who actually get joy from writing for the Star, the National Enquirer or People magazine, people who live to expose dirtiness. That's the stuff that makes me sick. I actually feel sorry for them. I mean, it's such a sad existence. Sometimes I think they should set up a home, an asylum, for people like that. And that whole pride thing they have is just so unbelievable to me. "I saw a talk show once with a whole slew of paparazzi defending their positions. They were sitting there saying things like, 'I went up to so-and-so and he wouldn't even smile at me, and after I kept after him to see if I could get him to smile, he tried to punch me.' And I was sitting there thinking, 'Yeah, I would have punched you too.'"
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