If Sean Penn smokes a cigarette during any Toronto Film Festival press events next week while promoting Into The Wild, he’s going to get personally slapped with a fine. Jim Watson, Ontario’s Minister of Health Promotion, was quoted yesterday by the National Post‘s Tony Lofaro as saying that “no one is above the law, and just because you happen to be famous or in the movies doesn’t mean you can snub our laws and endanger people in the process.”
The threat applies to all filmmakers, of course, but Penn has the full glare of the spotlight because he lit up during an All The King’s Men press conference last year at the Sutton Place Hotel. Penn skated but the hotel had to fork over $605 “for failing to inform visitors about the anti-smoking rules and not posting proper signage in the hotel.”