“Eyebrows were raised” when Natalie and Sean Penn were seen talking to one another at a hotel bar. Funny, when I read this my eyebrows didn’t raise but my eyelids closed…and I had a nap.

Meanwhile, eyebrows were raised the other night when Penn dined with gorgeous (and single) Natalie Portman, “Milk” writer Dustin Lance Black, and two others at Tower Bar at the Sunset Tower Hotel in LA.

“Sean and Natalie were talking quietly,” our spy says. Penn is usually circumspect regarding his behavior around hot young actresses, as he’s married to long-suffering Robin Wright Penn. He has been linked to Lindsay Lohan and Petra Nemcova, among others. A rep for Penn says, “Sean doesn’t have a house in LA so, of course, he stays in a hotel.”