Sean Penn Talks About Why He Skipped the Oscars Despite Winning

Three months after Sean Penn was noticeably absent after winning Best Supporting Actor for his turn as military colonel Steven J. Lockjaw in One Battle After Another at this year’s Oscars, the actor shared why he opted out of the ceremony.

When appearing at the Tribeca Festival in New York on Friday for a conversation with CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins, Penn said that he had deliberately timed his visit to Ukraine to overlap with the Academy Awards.

According to USA Today, he said that the ceremony had “always represented social discomfort to me,” and that he “won’t go anywhere to be with a designated group beyond eight people.” He elaborated, “If you cut out two hours for your night, it gives you 15 minutes per person,” adding that a group larger than that “is just anxiety- and dread-inducing.”

Days after Penn’s no-show at the awards, it was later revealed that he had traveled to Europe to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The actor, who has spent significant time in Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion in 2022, was also honored by Ukraine’s state rail group, Ukrzaliznytsia. At the time, the Ukrainian railway said in an X post that it knew the actor had missed the Academy Awards, so the company “gave him one of his own” — an Oscar made from the “metal of a railway car damaged by russian shelling.” The railway called the gesture a “symbol of resilience.”

Penn, who had previously won two Oscars for Best Actor — for Mystic River in 2003 and Milk in 2009 — said that during award shows, “the best I could ever muster was relief,” because people involved with those films were supporting him. He said, “Knowing that I wasn’t going to do that anymore, I did one before that this year. I went to the Golden Globes. I’d never been to that before and that’s where I decided, ‘I can’t do this.’”

He also said that his One Battle colleagues and Warner Bros. were aware ahead of time that he wouldn’t be attending the ceremony and that “everybody understood. They know me, and they felt that it was better for my mental health.” 

Elsewhere in the conversation, Penn revealed his aversion for selfies. “On top of the small talk and glad-handing, there’s ‘all the selfies,” Penn said of awards season. “People should not do selfies with anyone ever. It’s bad for you. … The Holocaust grandmother and her six-year-old paraplegic [grandson] wheeling over? A hard no.”

Penn, who watched the Oscars from Ukraine, said, “Having only felt relief a couple other times, I got to be excited watching the awards.” He added, “I really got to enjoy the Academy Awards for the first time. It was great.”