Nature Boys

PENN: You say, "Good boy," all day long. Or the trainer does. And he gives him a lot of chocolate whipped cream.

McCandless doesn't come off as a saint in the movie. I mean, he won't call his parents even though they're desperate to hear from him. He's angry.

PENN: You know, this is subject to a lot of personal stuff on anybody's part--yours, mine. My answer to "He should have called his parents" is "Who says?" I understand it, but I walked in my shoes, not his shoes. What I do know is that if you're not feeling your life, you are obligated first to do everything it takes to feel your life. I've done many things without the intention of hurting people that have hurt people. And I'm saying this knowing that I've got two kids that are coming up to that age myself right now.

Eddie, you talked before about how much you have in common with McCandless. [Vedder has a famously difficult relationship with his stepfather, as McCandless did with his father.] Did doing the movie help you get over that pain at all?

VEDDER: Not enough. But it'll do for now. I don't think it's gonna go away. I think in the last 10 to 15 years, I've just been able to not let that person and that part of me be in charge--that guy is in the car, but we just don't let him drive. That's something Springsteen told me once, and it really works. He'll be talking in your ear in the backseat, but just don't let him get behind the wheel. And you can be proud of it. I've talked to the people that raised me, and I've thanked them for giving me a lifetime's worth of material. I was talking to Bono in Australia last year, and we mentioned something about family histories, and he was like, Wow, they really gave you some good stuff to write about. It was like he wanted to hug them and thank them.

PENN: My mother was reading this article about me in Esquire last month, and she called me up, and she said [Penn does his mother's voice], "Well, I thought it was an interesting article, but you know, the one thing, every time I'm sitting with you, you have a Diet Coke. Why is it that you're an alcoholic? I'm the alcoholic!" It was as though I'd stolen her mantle!

The thing I can't figure out about Into the Wild is if it's a happy story or a sad one. McCandless experiences so much joy, but then he dies in the end ...

PENN: Let me tell you what I think. My Uncle Bill, who was dying--with 13 cousins that he had all with my Aunt Joan, they had a great, happy marriage for all their years. So there he is on his deathbed. He'd been in a coma a couple of days, and a priest has come in to give last rites. This was the first time, Irish that they are, that my aunt let a tear fall, trusting that his coma would make him unaware of it. Well, open come the eyes, and he sees. He catches her--she can't get away with it. And his last words were "What're ya crying about? You're gonna die too." Chris McCandless lived too short, that's true, but he, in my view, put an entire life from birth to the wisdom of age into those years.