Tea and Cookies?

News Flash: Sean Penn is behaving in the heartland.

After several months of pre-production, filming has quietly gotten under way near Omaha, Neb., on “The Indian Runner,” the family drama that marks Penn’s directorial debut (he also wrote the screenplay). It’s also the first major film to shoot in Nebraska since 1983’s “Terms of Endearment.”

Shooting is taking place largely in the Omaha suburb of Plattsmouth and across the Missouri River in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

The soon-to-be-bridegroom Penn personally told crew members to allow a local newspaper photographer on the set and has promised a press conference, although “they seem to push it back each week,” says Larry King, metro editor of the Omaha World-Herald. “So we’ve covered the film on our own.”

Meanwhile, in neighboring Norfolk (hometown of Johnny Carson), the Norfolk Daily News printed an editorial, “Polite and Quiet,” which applauded Penn’s manner during a recent visit with Nebraska Gov. Kay Orr at the governor’s mansion in Lincoln.

Orr’s communications director, Doug Parrott, reports: “The governor told me he (Penn) was very quiet--and well-behaved. They had iced tea and chocolate chip cookies--and the chocolate cookies at the governor’s mansion are very famous.

“The governor told me Sean said he really enjoyed them.”