You could say that the two movies and the Iraq visit have increased 43-year-old Penn's big-dog factor: He's being talked up as an Oscar nominee, put down as a traitor, and still has time to bark out rough judgments, including ones about his government -- ''It's no longer a matter of good intentions [in Iraq]; it's a matter of men of ill will'' -- and about President George W. Bush, who he thinks is being guided by ''systemic puppetry.'' And he's certainly no kinder to his own profession: ''A lot of actors lately have chosen to go into the modeling business: Every other page of a magazine, there's an actor in some designer clothes. When actors talk about the balance between art and commerce, they're usually on their way to hell.''
Penn is, however, this year's model in a different sense: Critics and peers alike are suddenly giving him his due as an artist hitting his mature stride. With ''Mystic River'' and ''21 Grams,'' Penn enters into a new stage in his career and life. He plays very different men -- one a working-class stiff, the other an emotionally adrift math professor -- but they share the burden of getting older and bearing heavy trauma in their lives. It's clear that Penn -- who's spent much of his career until now playing either deluded zonk-outs (''Fast Times at Ridgemont High,'' ''The Falcon and the Snowman,'' ''We're No Angels'') or ruthless young men on the make or on their way to death (''Carlito's Way,'' ''Dead Man Walking,'' ''Sweet and Lowdown'') -- has moved gracefully into middle-aged roles with the sharpened artistry that can come from experience and an increased desire to make every screen second count. He, of course, declines to put it so grandly.
''Well, the clothes of your life start to fit in middle age,'' he says. ''The stakes are raised; the more life you've lived, the more significant the places you can take a character. I'm in a couple of good movies right now. And they're timely in a way that seems rewarding to [audiences] who are willing to invest in the questions these movies raise.''
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