Robin Wright Reflects on Raising Children With Ex-Husband Sean Penn: ‘We Were Both Extremes’

Robin Wright is the first to admit she has “regrets” as a parent.

“I have a huge regret as a mother and have experienced the fallout of this regret for many years with my kids — I wasn’t hard enough on them,” Wright, 59, told The Times of London in an interview published on Saturday, August 30. The House of Cards actress shares two children, Dylan and Hopper, with her ex-husband, Sean Penn.

According to Wright, Sean, 65, was the stricter parent.

“But he was gone so much of the time. He’d come back and be the policeman and then he’d leave me with the residue,” Wright continued.“Then I would soften the blow. We were both extremes. They didn’t get that grey area in the middle, which is stern, and that is what they needed.”

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Wright —who is promoting her latest film The Girlfriend, in which she plays an over-protective mom who doesn’t approve of her son’s latest partner — admitted it hasn’t always been smooth sailing when her own children have introduced her to their significant others

“I felt like that with a couple of girls my son brought home, where I was, like, ‘No, this is not going to work.’ And it didn’t work, thank God,” she admitted. “You’re always going to have that intrinsic mummy radar.’

Wright met Sean on the set of the 1990 movie State of Grace, and the pair married in 1996. The actors had both been married previously — Sean was married to Madonna from 1985 to 1989, and Wright was married to Dane Witherspoon from 1986 to 1988.

Robin Wright and Sean Penn Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic

The pair separated in 2007 and divorced in 2010. Both have spoken publicly about the steps they had to take in order to become friends again.

“It turns out it’s a lot quicker to repair a friendship after divorce if there are not kids involved,” Penn explained in a 2022 interview with The New York Times. “It took Robin and I quite a while. There was a lot of drama.”

The actor continued, “Much more important to repair it if there are kids involved, but no easy swing, right?”

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Wright spoke of her friendship with Sean in 2023, telling E! News, “To be friends with the father of your children… I mean, it’s a gift, because we know divorce with children is one of the most difficult things in life.”

She added, “We’re always gonna be family, whether we’re together or apart, you know? And I think that’s beautiful, and I wish that for everybody.”