Sean Penn won his third Oscar, but he didn’t attend the 98th Academy Awards ceremony, and many were left wondering what the reason for his absence could be. Well, at least those unaware of the actor’s feelings towards the ceremony.
Penn was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for the role of Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw in Paul Thomas Anderson’s film One Battle After Another and won but he wasn’t there to accept the award.
Instead, it was last year’s Best Supporting Actor winner Kieran Culkin who was presenting this year’s category who accepted the Oscar on Penn’s behalf. “Sean Penn couldn’t be here this evening, or didn’t want to,” he joked.
Except for failing to attend the Dolby Theater ceremony, Penn also missed the BAFTAs and the Actor Awards over the past month to pick up his wins.
While Penn didn’t release any official statement regarding his absence, sources close to the actor told The New York Times that he had planned to visit Ukraine as of last week. Whether he did travel to Ukraine or not hasn’t been confirmed.
Ghosting the Oscars isn’t anything new for Penn, 65. He also missed the ceremony in 1996 for his nomination for Dead Man Walking, in 2000 for Sweet and Lowdown, and in 2002 for I Am Sam, according to The Associated Press.
Expressing his feelings for the ceremony, Penn said at one point, “The Academy have exercised really extraordinary cowardice… limiting the imagination and different cultural expressions,” according to VT.
In another interview, he said: “I don’t get very excited about what we’ll call the Academy Awards.”
He has also raised doubts about how much the awards should matter when judging artistic work, saying, “Ceremonies like the Oscars should best be seen as television shows first and less as barometers of artistic merit.”
In 2023, Penn told Variety that he would even consider melting down his Oscar trophies to support relief efforts in Ukraine.
“I’ll give them to Ukraine. They can be melted down to bullets they can shoot at the Russians,” he said of giving one of his Oscar statuettes to Zelenskyy at the time.
Penn had already been in Ukraine while co-directing the 2023 documentary Superpower, where he traveled to the country to explore the career journey of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
This years’s Academy Award is his first Oscar in the best supporting actor category. He had previously won best actor for his performances in Mystic River and Milk. He attended both of those Oscar ceremonies.
Penn has now joined an elite group of three-time acting Oscar winners that includes Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, Daniel Day-Lewis, Ingrid Bergman, Frances McDormand and Walter Brennan.
Katharine Hepburn still holds the record for the most acting Oscars, with four wins during her career for Morning Glory, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, The Lion in Winter and On Golden Pond.
At this year’s Academy Awards, One Battle After Another claimed best picture and best director as part of a six-award sweep. The movie also won for best editing, best adapted screenplay and the first Oscar ever presented for best casting.
Leonardo DiCaprio was nominated for Best Actor for the same film, starring alongside Sean Penn but lost to Michael B. Jordan who won Best Actor for Sinners.
