Sean Penn Recounts Meeting with El Chapo Through Kate Del Castillo for Rolling Stone

Sean Penn is one brave man. The actor turned activist has been at the forefront of political and social causes such as his work in Haiti, his meetings with controversial political figures such as Cuban president Raul Castro, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and now he can add Mexico's public enemy number 1 - Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera otherwise known as El Chapo. The infamous drug lord escaped two Mexican prisons, but was recently captured once again. In the Rolling Stone article, he details the trip to Mexico along with Mexican actress Kate del Castillo who arranged the meeting with her pen pal.

Some are speculating Sean Penn and Kate del Castillo's meeting with the notorious Mexican figure led to his capture after their clandesting meeting tipped off the authorities. In the Rolling Stone article, the 55-year-old details his action to get a meeting with El Chapo, and how it went down once they landed in Mexico. His account reads like a plot from a movie.

He also expores his reasons for taking on the treacherous adventure to see the drug lord in the excepert below. The article is rather long, but it's worth the read. Read it here.

Rolling Stone Excerpt:

"As an American citizen, I'm drawn to explore what may be inconsistent with the portrayals our government and media brand upon their declared enemies. Not since Osama bin Laden has the pursuit of a fugitive so occupied the public imagination. But unlike bin Laden, who had posed the ludicrous premise that a country's entire population is defined by – and therefore complicit in – its leadership's policies, with the world's most wanted drug lord, are we, the American public, not indeed complicit in what we demonize? We are the consumers, and as such, we are complicit in every murder, and in every corruption of an institution's ability to protect the quality of life for citizens of Mexico and the United States that comes as a result of our insatiable appetite for illicit narcotics.

As much as anything, it's a question of relative morality. What of the tens of thousands of sick and suffering chemically addicted Americans, barbarically imprisoned for the crime of their illness? Locked down in facilities where unspeakable acts of dehumanization and violence are inescapable, and murder a looming threat. Are we saying that what's systemic in our culture, and out of our direct hands and view, shares no moral equivalency to those abominations that may rival narco assassinations in Juarez? Or, is that a distinction for the passive self-righteous?"