Sean Penn won the award for Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars on Sunday (March 15), but he was notably absent to accept his award.
Penn won his third Academy Award, but he wasn’t in attendance at the ceremony, where he was nominated for his performance in One Battle After Another. Everyone else nominated in the category—including his co-star Benicio Del Toro, Jacob Elordi, Delroy Lindo, and Stellan Skarsgärd—were in attendance. When Kieran Culkin announced Penn as the winner, he said, “Sean Penn couldn’t be here this evening, or didn’t want to, so I’ll be accepting the award on his behalf.”
Penn, who previously won Best Actor for his performances in Mystic River and Milk, opted to skip the ceremony this year. As reported by The New York Times, he’s currently in Ukraine as part of his support for the country and its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, amid the Russian invasion. Penn also directed a documentary about the Russian invasion, Superpower.
He notably didn’t attend the BAFTAs or the Screen Actors Guild, where he also won for One Battle After Another, but he did attend the Golden Globes, where he was nominated but did not win.
The last time a major winner skipped out on picking up their Oscar award was in 2024, when Studio Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki didn’t show up to collect his statuette for The Boy and the Heron. But Penn has a history of criticizing the Academy. In 2023, he said that when he saw Will Smith slap Chris Rock at the 94th Academy Awards, he wanted to melt down his Oscars so they could be used for bullets in Ukraine.
He also called the Academy’s refusal to invite Zelenskyy to speak “fucking bullshit,” and that if he did, then Smith would have “never left that chair.” Penn, who has been accused of striking his ex-wife, Madonna, multiple times throughout their marriage, said he drew the line at Smith’s slap.
