Robin Wright Says Co-Parenting With Ex Sean Penn Was Difficult: 'We Were Both Extremes'

Robin Wright is opening up about what it was really like co-parenting with ex-husband Sean Penn, with whom she shares two kids — Dylan Frances Penn, 34, and Hopper Jack Penn, 32.

“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,” Robin, 59, told The Times of London in an interview published Saturday, August 30.

Looking back, the Forrest Gump star admitted their parenting styles couldn’t have been more different.

“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,” she explained of Sean’s stricter approach. “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.”

While promoting her new movie The Girlfriend, Robin said she actually sees some of herself in her on-screen character — an overprotective mom who disapproves of her son’s latest partner.

“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.”

Sean and Robin were married for 14 years, tying the knot in 1996 after meeting on the set of the 1990 film State of Grace.

Both had been married before — Sean famously to Madonna from 1985 to 1989, while Robin was briefly wed to Dane Witherspoon from 1986 to 1988.

Sean has also been candid about how difficult things were after the split.

“It turns out it’s a lot quicker to repair a friendship after divorce if there are not kids involved,” he once said. “It took Robin and I quite a while. There was a lot of drama.”

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

Over time, the two found a way to rebuild their bond.

“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," Robin told E! News in February 2023.

Sean later married Australian actress Leila George in 2020, but the pair split just two years later.

These days, he said he’s “thrilled” being on his own.

The Gunman alum explained, “If I’m going to be in a relationship, I’m still going to be free, or I’m not going to be in it, and I’m not going to be hurting. I don’t sense I’ll have my heart broken by romance again.”