Sean Penn has never been a fan of the paparazzi, and based on an incident caught on tape Tuesday, neither is his 19-year-old son Hopper Penn.

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Hopper Penn gets into an altercation with a photographer while visiting an office building with dad Sean Penn on Tuesday in Beverly Hills.

The younger Penn was following his father into a Beverly Hills building Tuesday when the incident occurred. Sean sauntered past the clicking photographers without a word or acknowledgment, but his son walked over from across the street and began engaging the photographers. Based on a video shot by one of the snappers, Hopper pushed past him (possibly making contact) and the two began engaging in a verbal altercation. 

"What the hell?" the photographer who got pushed aside said.

"You f------ kidding me?" Hopper shot back, never pausing.

"You kidding me?" the photographer continued, following him into the building. "Don't play yourself. Don't ever do that, dude."

Hopper shot his middle finger in the air and the verbal parrying continued. But then it took a more aggressive turn, as Hopper's retreating figure first called the photographer a homosexual slur.

"That the kind of talk you're teaching him, Sean?" the photographer, undeterred, called down the emptying hallway.

Hopper's last riposte was to shoot back that the photographer, who was African-American, was a "f------ n-----."

"Oh, word?" the photographer, now outraged, called out.

Police showed up at the scene, according to E! Online, and the photographer is seen in another video showing officers footage on his camera. The photographer declined to press charges. No one was cited.

Hopper later issued a statement, saying, "I was accosted by paparazzi and made to feel like an animal -- threatened and under attack, but that does not condone my own actions. ... I deeply regret my choice of words."

Sean Penn's own altercations with the paparazzi have been well documented. Here's video from 2010 of the actor kicking a photographer. And here's a classic image from back in the Madonna days of Penn throwing a punch. 

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Leo Ramirez / AFP/Getty Images file

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Sean Penn together on Feb. 16, 2012.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez died on Tuesday after a long bout with cancer. He was 58.

The controversial leader had a slew of Hollywood heavyweights supporting him throughout his reign, with the most vocal two being actor Sean Penn and filmmaker Oliver Stone.

"Today the people of the United States lost a friend it never knew it had. And poor people around the world lost a champion." says Penn in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. "I lost a friend I was blessed to have. My thoughts are with the family of President Chavez and the people of Venezuela."

Photos from THR: Hollywood's Notable Deaths of 2013

"Venezuela and its revolution will endure under the proven leadership of Vice President Maduro," adds Penn.

Penn, who has been a longtime supporter of Chavez, made a surprise appearance in Bolivia in December to attend a candlelight vigil for the health of the leader. Said Penn at the vigil: “He’s one of the most important forces we’ve had on this planet, and I’ll wish him nothing but that great strength he has shown over and over again. I do it in love, and I do it in gratitude."

Slideshow: Hugo Chavez dies: The world reacts

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Earlier in August 2012, Penn had joined Chavez at an election rally in Venezuela. The two first met in 2007 in Venezuela.

More from THR: Sean Penn Attends Vigil for Hugo Chavez in Bolivia

Stone first met Chavez in December 2007. The filmmaker championed Chavez in his 2009 film "South of the Border," which explored the political and social changes occurring in South America, and credited Chavez for many of those changes.

''I mourn a great hero to the majority of his people and those who struggle throughout the world for a place," says Stone in a statement to THR. "Hated by the entrenched classes, Hugo Chavez will live forever in history."

"My friend, rest finally in a peace long earned," he adds.

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REVIEW: "Gangster Squad" made the news last summer before most moviegoers had even heard of it. A scene in the film's trailer shows four men with automatic weapons who stand behind a movie screen and fire through it at the seated audience while a movie airs, then walk through the holes their bullets made in the screen and continue firing.

The scene would've been brutally violent in any context, but after the horrific shootings at a Colorado theater showing "The Dark Knight Rises," the trailer was pulled and the film altered. That scene's now gone from the film, and those who haven't heard of the controversy wouldn't ever notice its omission. (The released film contains a scene with a shooting in Chinatown, which reportedly was added in as a replacement for the theater scene.)

But as with "Jack Reacher," which came out just a week after the Connecticut school shootings and opens with a sniper who takes aim on innocents, including a young girl, it's going to be tough for many -- perhaps all -- to see the sheer amount of violence in "Gangster Squad" and not wonder about it.

Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who's acted in his share of violent films, has come out and said that Hollywood can't be blamed for real-life shootings like those in Colorado and Connecticut. And in a lively discussion on the TODAY Facebook page, many readers agreed with the former California governor.

"Watching Roadrunner-(Wile E.) Coyote cartoons did not make me hit people on the head with an anvil," wrote reader Abel Garcia.

And indeed that's true. Few Acme anvil murders have been reported even when Looney Tunes was at the height of its popularity. But that doesn't mean it's easy to sit and watch the sheer unrelenting violence that flows across the screen in "Gangster Squad," to see a pregnant woman shot at over and over again, to watch a man murdered with a giant drill and then see the camera quickly switch -- in a supposedly witty segue -- to a raw hamburger patty sizzling on a grill.

But suppose you can take as much violence as Hollywood cares to dish out here, from the guy ripped in half by a car and quickly devoured  by coyotes to the henchmen burned up in an elevator. Even then, "Gangster Squad" is no "Godfather," no "L.A. Confidential." It doesn't delve into the minds of its characters like those films, doesn't use its richly painted retro setting for anything meaningful.

Josh Brolin stars as Sgt. John O'Mara, an Irish cop who sets out to stop New York mobster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) from taking over Los Angeles. It's 1949, and Brolin and his pals repeatedly remind us that they're World War II vets, who fought for freedom overseas and aren't about to give up fighting back at home. But there's no real indication of how the war hardened or changed them, only the constant repetition that they are veterans. Which every man was back then, and few needed to trumpet.

Penn, so good in so many films, has just two emotions here: "I'm About To Go Full-Blown Completely Freakout Psycho," and "Here I Am, In Full-Blown Completely Freakout Psycho Mode." There's never a sense, as we got from the Corleones in "The Godfather" or even Tony Soprano in "The Sopranos," that Cohen has anything in his personality that would make him a leader. He's just a sadistic crazy who's bound to turn on anyone he's ever met, including lovely girlfriend Emma Stone.

Ryan Gosling utilizes his Hey-Girl charm as the womanizing member of the squad, with Robert Patrick as the sharpshooting cowboy, Giovanni Ribisi as the brainiac, and Anthony Mackie as the black guy who hates Burbank. Seriously, he's given no other distinguishing characteristics, but at least he's slightly more of a full squad member than Michael Pena, who plays the group's lone Mexican member.

The screenplay never avoids a chance to remind us that Cohen is Bad with a capital B. After he has the man torn apart and fed to coyotes, his henchmen sweet-talk a midwestern innocent fresh off the bus into a hotel room where they plan to gang-rape her. O'Mara's able to smash his way in one-handed and stop it, of course, because that's the kind of movie this is. Uncomplicated evil meets uncomplicated good, and blood and brains grease the path. 

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Bolivia Agency of Information

Sean Penn at the vigil for Hugo Chavez in Bolivia.

Actor Sean Penn made a surprise appearance Monday in Bolivia as he attended a candlelight vigil for the health of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who is currently in Cuba undergoing his fourth cancer surgery.

PHOTOS: Cannes Day 3: "Madagascar 3" premiere, Sean Penn's Haiti event

The event attracted Chavez supporters as well as Bolivian officials, and took place in a diplomatic location in La Paz. Penn joined Venezuelan ambassador Crisbeylee Gonzalez and took the stage wearing a Venezuelan flag jacket, according to a report by EFE.

“Thank you, Sean,” said Gonzalez, “for joining us and for wanting to be here. We know President Chavez is a good friend of yours, and you didn’t hesitate one second about coming here with us to this vigil."

“He’s one of the most important forces we’ve had on this planet,” said Penn. “And I’ll wish him nothing but that great strength he has shown over and over again. I do it in love, and I do it in gratitude.

Slideshow: Sean Penn

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“I just want to say, from my very American point of view, of my friend President Chavez: It is only possible to be so inspiring as he is, as a two-way street. And he would say that his inspiration is the people.”

STORY: Sean Penn on his blacklisted Dad: "There was no loyalty"

Penn has openly expressed his admiration and support for the left-wing government of Venezuela in the past, and declared U.S. audiences have been “hypnotized” by big media corporations regarding Chavez’s democratic credentials. “Who do you know here who's gone through 14 of the most transparent elections on the globe and has been elected democratically, as Hugo Chavez?" he stated in 2010. Since then, Chavez has won yet another presidential election this year against opposition candidate Henrique Capriles.

Penn was in Bolivia this week to attend a hearing for the release of businessman Jacob Ostreicher, who has spent 18 months in a maximum security local prison with no trial or sentence, under charges of money laundering.

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Cannes isn't just home to the glamorous, glitzy film festival -- it's the spot where two-time Oscar winner Sean Penn recently hosted a different kind of celebrity bash. He threw his "Carnival in Cannes" benefit to raise funds for relief in Haiti, which is still trying to recover from a massive earthquake two years ago. For Penn, Haiti is a special place.

"The job isn't done," he told TODAY's Ann Curry about efforts to repair the nation. "The job of the international community isn't done." That said, he added, "It's kind of a magic moment. It's an exciting time to be working in Haiti."

Tables for "Carnival" went for as much as $100,000 each, and guests included Ben Stiller and Chris Rock, according to Reuters. Penn has been named "Ambassador-at-large for Haiti" by the country's new president, Michel Martelly. Penn's J/P Haitian Relief Organization has been going since just a few days after the earthquake hit.

Slideshow: Sean Penn

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Curry asked Penn about his demanding nature, particularly when working with helpers in Haiti, and he was unrepentant: "Most of the people I'm angry at are usually international volunteers who are coming over to stamp themselves with a do-gooder label. ... I don't control my temper well, I guess."

Penn has long been a supporter of humanitarian causes, including journeying to post-Katrina New Orleans to help rescue people. But, he adds, he's not out to prove he's more moral-than-thou.

"I'm not going to accuse myself of being moral. ... I recognize a lot of the things that are less than good in me, and similarly there is a very powerful thing that comes when something is good despite me," he said.

And on the subject of morality, Penn has some ideas about the afterlife: "I prefer not to go to hell," he said. "I'd like to think that heaven is a little sexier than generally portrayed ... but if it is black and quiet, that's OK too."

Do you applaud Penn's work in Haiti? Tell us on Facebook and follow us on Pinterest.

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Jean-paul Pelissier / Reuters

Sean Penn attends a news conference about Haiti on Friday in Cannes, France.

Sean Penn isn't a fan of slacktivists. On Friday in Cannes, the actor-activist slammed the media for abandoning Haiti after the devastating earthquake in January 2010.

"It's not only celebrities who went for a day," Penn told reporters, as excerpted by TheWrap.com. "It's the whole  [expletive] world. It's all of you."

MORE: Sean Penn Receives 2012 Peace Summit Award for Work in Haiti

"The reason we have Haiti fatigue is because there was never a commitment in the first place," he added.

Penn also called upon Barack Obama to meet with Haiti's newly elected president Michel Joseph Martelly. "It's time our elegant and formidable president stood side by side [with Martelly]," he said.

The actor was part of a news conference with Petra Nemcova and director Paul Haggis, all of whom work with nonprofit organizations in Haiti. The trio joined forces for a benefit for the country at the Cannes Film Festival.

PICS: Do-Gooder Gallery

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Love takes time to heal -- just ask Scarlett Johansson. Although the "Avengers" actress, 27, has dated other men after her late 2010 divorce from Ryan Reynolds -- including Sean Penn and, currently, NYC ad exec Nate Naylor -- the stunning star tells the May issue of Vogue that she's still hurting from the end of her two-year marriage.

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Johansson calls the breakup "comically amicable," but clarifies that it was still "horrible . . . Of course it's horrible. It was devastating. It really throws you. You think that your life is going to be one way, and then, for various reasons or whatever, it doesn't work out."

She muses that divorce is "like the loneliest thing you'll ever do, in some way."

And while Johansson says she now feels "relative peace," she confides to Vogue that the split from "Safe House" star Reynolds, 35, who has rebounded with Blake Lively, still gives her grief. "I don't feel on the other side of it completely, but it gets better," she says. "It's still there. More than anything, it's just that not having your buddy around all the time is weird. There's no rule book. I think it's just time."

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The "We Bought a Zoo" actress is less descriptive when talking about her rebound romance with Penn, 51, with whom she was involved for five months last year.

"We spent time together, yeah," she admits. "I never put a title on it, really, but we were seeing each other."

Regardless, she and the Oscar winner/humanitarian are on excellent terms. "He's a remarkable person . . . He really is."

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Her romance with Naylor, 37, was much more low-key; the couple kept their relationship under wraps for five months until going public in late January.

"It must be very strange for him," she says of her non-celebrity beau. "It's totally bizarre. It's an adjustment — I mean, it's got to be an adjustment for him way more than it was for me at 19," she observes of her first days as a movie star. "But he's really remarkably good about it."

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Evan Agostini / AP file

Sean Penn was in no mood to talk politics with his former "Colors" co-star Maria Conchita Alonso.

Don't get between Sean Penn and his politics. The actor got into an intense verbal altercation at Los Angeles International airport Sunday with actress (and former co-star) Maria Conchita Alonso after she confronted him about his support for Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.  

In a radio interview with WMAL in Washington, recounted by Gossip Cop, Alonso, who last year condemned Penn and his support for Chavez in an open letter, said when she approached the actor in the airport, he told her, "I don’t wanna talk to you. You speak badly about me."

The actress responded, "I just say the truth ... That you are a friend of Chavez and that he’s a good man. And that’s a lie ... How can you do that?"

Alonso said she then accused Penn of supporting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which he denied before calling her, "a pig," to which she retorted, "And you are a Communist, Sean Penn."

The actress, who played Penn's lover in the 1988 film "Colors," admitted to calling Penn a "Communist a--hole" in front of a large crowd at LAX. Alonso says she regrets the a--hole part, but not calling him a Communist.

Listen to Alonso on WMAL: