First Look: Sean Penn in 'Milk'

In this exclusive First Look at director Gus Van Sant's highly anticipated biopic Milk (out Nov. 26), Sean Penn, as community activist Harvey Milk, celebrates his long-fought election to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977, the first time an openly gay man had won elected office in a major U.S. city.

Milk ran his campaign headquarters out of his camera store in the city's de facto gay neighborhood known as the Castro, and ''we re-created the camera store in its actual location on Castro Street [for the movie],'' explains producer Dan Jinks (American Beauty). "[Sean] is playing a guy who's not at all like him, way beyond the sexuality of the character. Harvey was this guy who wants everybody to love him, and he loves everybody else. Sean just completely became that guy. It's a real transformation.''