Just days after Sean Penn stars in the highly anticipated documentary about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the Oscar-winner will pivot to a hilarious, homegrown hostage satire.

In what Stan describes as the “biggest ensemble of Hollywood and home-grown talent in an Australian original television production”, Penn joins Susan Sarandon (Thelma and Louise) and Tuppence Middleton (Downton Abbey) in C*A*U*G*H*T.

Australian-born, US-based writer and actor Kick Gurry is making his directing debut with C*A*U*G*H*T, and recently told Variety that when he shopped around the script in Los Angeles, Penn’s reaction “was music to his ears”.

“He said everyone’s afraid of stories right now and we have to be pushing forward with courage in storytelling,” Gurry says.

Penn, 63, who stars and comes on board as executive producer, is better known for his criticism of the George W. Bush administration, his contact with the presidents of Venezuela and Cuba and his humanitarian work in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

With all the hallmarks of a Tropic Thunder-style script – which won numerous awards and was a box office hit in 2008 – Gurry explores identity, fame and the “absurdity of the viral age” in this six-episode series.

“Why can’t we comedically deconstruct the intellectual ideas that humanity is facing right now?” Gurry says.

Stan’s Cailah Scobie says having an international superstar like Penn join the core ensemble cast was “a real coup”.

He says the series promises “to poke fun at celebrity culture, while exploring the often outrageous price of fame”.

Australian Minister of Defence, Colonel Bishop, played by New Zealander Erik Thomson. Photo: Stan

A ‘murderer’s row of talent’

Alongside Gurry, the three other kidnapped soldiers are Ben O’Toole (Detroit), Lincoln Younes (Last King of the Cross) and Alexander England (Black Snow).

The addition of Hollywood stars Sarandon, Middleton, Travis Fimmel (Vikings), Matthew Fox (Lost) and Australian legend Bryan Brown (Palm Beach), C*A*U*G*H*T may well continue the success of Australian original productions commissioned by the streamers.

Stan joins Prime Video and Disney+ in recent times finding local stories and turning them into hit shows.

The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, Deadloch, The Clearing, Fisk (picked up by Netflix to stream internationally) and Bluey are all enjoying international success.

‘Australia has an ear for the outrageous like not many other countries do,‘ Kick Gurry says. Photo: Stan

“Stan producing shows with this level of global talent and ambitious international expectations is a shift in terms of opportunities for show runners, such as Gurry,” observes Variety.

“I left Australia 20 years ago, because I thought Hollywood was a place I could go to explore really unique and original ideas,” Gurry says.

“And ironically, it was going home where I found a place like Stan that would support that kind of thing … a lot of places were scared of the show, they didn’t quite understand what it was; saying, ‘but is it funny?’ or ‘is it serious?’

“‘Is it heartbreaking? Is it right?’” says Gurry.

It’s probably all of the above.

In a curious marketing exercise by Stan, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nine, the streamer with more than two million subscribers has released what they call a green- and a red-band teaser trailer in the lead-up to the launch in late September.

“Stan isn’t dicking around, releasing explicit red band trailer,” it wrote, as the Bee Gees disco hit Stayin’ Alive blares in the background.

Upon viewing, it contains vision of one of the hostage’s male genitalia (most likely a prosthetic).

Using real television journalists to help push a storyline has been used for decades.

In this case, they’ve roped in A Current Affair host Ally Langdon and Today Show host Karl Stefanovic for cameos.

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‘Hollywood hell-raiser turned activist’

Penn’s pivot into satire, especially an Aussie production, is a world away from his causes célebres over the past 20 years.

Penn, a two-time Oscar winner (for Mystic River in 2003 and Milk in 2008), travelled to Iraq in 2002 to protest before former president George W Bush’s US-led invasion.

“Sacrificing American soldiers or innocent civilians in an unprecedented pre-emptive attack on a separate sovereign nation may well prove itself a most temporary medicine,” he said at the time during a visit to Baghdad.

In a 2016 BBC feature, which documented his so-called “Hollywood hell-raiser turned activist” journey, Penn was destined for more than just being seen as a hard-drinking movie star who married A-listers including singer Madonna and Robin Wright.

He also dated South African-born actor Charlize Theron (Mad Max: Fury Road).

Playing lead roles in movies was only partly what drove him. He became passionate about writing, directing and producing stories and documentaries.

He founded the non-profit disaster relief organisation CORE (Community Organised Relief Effort) in response to the 2010 earthquakes in Haiti, chronicled in the 2020 documentary Citizen Penn.

In 2012, Penn travelled to the flood-stricken regions of Pakistan, where he handed out blankets, quilts and food aid, and laid floral wreaths for those who had died.

His so-called “history of curious meetings”, as observed by the Washington Post, continued when he interviewed drug kingpin El Chapo for Rolling Stone in 2016.

The Post said Penn’s appointment book wasn’t full of meetings with publicists, producers and stylists, but rather with “international fugitives and polarising world figures”.

He admitted at age 55 that he didn’t know how to use a laptop, but that didn’t stop his long-form essays: “This will be the first interview El Chapo had ever granted outside an interrogation room, leaving me no precedent by which to measure the hazards.

“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,” he said at the time.

Penn is currently working on an untitled project about murdered Middle East columnist and journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who disappeared after attending the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2018.

C*A*U*G*H*T premieres all episodes on September 28 on Stan