Sean Penn sounds more and more like he’s doing outtakes from Team America; here he exudes understanding and apologizes for his dumb, unenlightened American cousins who take things so literally—things like “Death to America.”

He told a film student during a visit to Iran’s Film Museum in Tehran on Monday that the “Death to America” slogan chanted each week at Friday Prayers hurt Iran-U.S. relations.

“I understand the nature of where it comes from and what its intention is,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s productive because I think the message goes to the American people and it is interpreted very literally.”

From Cox & Forkum Editorial Cartoons.