The 'Into the Wild' actor believes Covid-19 jabs should be mandatory in all businesses and Hollywood need to 'take the lead' by requiring employees to be fully vaccinated.

• Aug 13, 2021

AceShowbiz - Sean Penn has insisted coronavirus vaccines should be "mandatory."

The 60-year-old actor has urged everyone to have their COVID-19 jab, unless medically exempt, and he has called for the movie industry and other businesses to "take the lead" by insisting employees get vaccinated amid the pandemic.

"My deep belief, personally, is that it's no different having everybody being able to drive 100 miles an hour in a car," he told Yahoo! Entertainment. "This is one of those things that should be mandatory. I think that vaccines need to be mandatory and that businesses - the movie business and all businesses - need to take the lead and not be so timid when dealing with their collective bargaining partners."

The "Into the Wild" star also insisted there is no excuse for anyone claiming there is not enough "information available" about the vaccine.

"There's different kinds of hesitancies, and so I don't think that there's much excuse to not know the information available anymore," he added. "That's part of why I think it should be mandatory."

"A resistance that's just based on a certain kind of ... lack of imagination and understanding of anything that's helpful to the human race, I've become very frustrated by that. But I can only work within my own bounds and say that, for me, it should be mandatory."

This comes after it was reported last month (Jul21) that Sean wouldn't return to work on his new TV series "Gaslit" until the entire cast and crew had been vaccinated against COVID-19.

He appears in the Starz limited series with Julia Roberts, and was said to have offered to facilitate the vaccination effort free of charge through his CORE organisation.