AceShowbiz - The #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct has become too salacious, according to Sean Penn.

The "Milk" star plays an astronaut with a female boss in his new drama "The First", prompting many to ask if the idea was inspired by the movement, which was also created to tackle inequality in Hollywood.

Explaining he believes the project comes from a deeper place, Penn also revealed he thinks the #MeToo movement has created division between men and women.

"I would like to think that none of (the show) was influenced by what they would call the movement #MeToo," he told U.S. breakfast show Today on Monday, September 17. "I think it is influenced by the things that are developing in terms of the empowerment of women acknowledging each other and being acknowledged by men. This is a movement that was shouldered largely by the receptacle of the salacious".

"We don't know what is fact, many of it is salacious," he continued. "As soon as you call something a movement that was really a series of individual accusers, victims, accusations, some of which are unfounded, the spirit of much of what has been the #MeToo movement is to divide men and women".

The 58-year-old star also insists many women he speaks with in private about #MeToo agree that there needs to be more "common sense" about how the movement is handled.

"I'm gonna say that women that I talk to, not in front of a camera, that I listen to, of all walks of life, that there's a common sense that is not represented at all in the discussion when it comes to the media discussion of it...," he said. "I'm very suspicious of a movement that gets glommed (sic) onto great stridency and rage without nuance, and even when people try to discuss it in a nuanced way the nuance itself is attacked," he added.

"It's too black and white," he continued. "In most things that are very important it's good to just slow down".