Lee plays ‘Fast’ with Sean

“EMPIRE” cocreator Lee Daniels uses Sean Penn’s own performance as stoner Jeff Spicoli in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” against him in court papers seeking to dismiss Penn’s $10 million defamation lawsuit.

Penn filed the eightfigure suit against Daniels in September after the director compared the twotime Oscar winner to fellow actor and “Empire” star Terrence Howard, who has an alleged history of violence against women.

Daniels told the Hollywood Reporter that Howard “ain’t done nothing different than Marlon Brando or Sean Penn, and all of a sudden he’s some f - - kin’ demon.” He later cited rumors that Penn beat up Madonna, which the pop superstar later refuted in an affidavit.

But in court papers filed Tuesday, Daniels quips that claiming he “wronged Penn by falsely comparing Penn to someone else is constitutionally (to quote Penn’s iconic movie character Spicoli) ‘bogus.’ ”

Daniels notes, “The First Amendment protects all comparisons, even comparisons to paragons of criminal and evil: Charles Manson and the Nazis.” That’s something that the fictional “Spicoli understands . . . better than Sean Penn,” Daniels says. He also jabs Penn for his controversial interview with El Chapo. “A selfdescribed experimental journalist, he . . . just recently penned a highly publicized article in Rolling Stone detail ing his sitdown with alleged drug kingpin Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán.”

Penn’s attorney, Mathew Rosengart, swung back, telling The Post’s Julia Marsh: “The Madonna affidavit conclusively and incontrovertibly demonstrates that Daniels’ statements were false, reckless and defamatory.”

Rosengart continued, “Instead, his motion represents a sophomoric, and desperate, effort to stave off a trial, which we look forward to conducting, in order to hold Daniels liable for his egregious misconduct.” He also scoffed that Daniels “resorts to facile references to a movie and misquotes Penn as stating he was an ‘experimental’ journalist. The word is ‘experiential.’ ”