#ItaliansUnknown: Sean Penn Sean Penn is an American actor and film director. His mother, Eileen Annucci, is a Catholic of half-Irish and half-Italian descent. Penn has appeared in more than 50 films and won many awards during his career as an actor and director. He has won two Academy Awards for Best Actor for Mystic River (2003) and Milk (2008), and was nominated three more times in the same category for Dead Man Walking (1995), Sweet and Lowdown (1999), and I Am Sam (2001). He also received a Directors Guild of America nomination for directing Into the Wild (2007). #SeanPenn