Sean Penn just made Oscars history and wasn’t even in the building to see it happen. The 65‑year‑old won his third Academy Award, this time for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw in Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, but skipped the ceremony entirely.
Presenter Kieran Culkin told the audience, “Sean Penn couldn’t be here this evening — or didn’t want to, so I’ll be accepting the award on his behalf.” The line got a laugh, but it also underlined the obvious: no Sean, no speech, just a very expensive empty seat with some potential shade.
Penn’s absence has been a running theme this awards season. He also missed both the BAFTAs and the Actor Awards, even as he kept winning for the same performance. Earlier in the campaign, he spoke to W Magazine about how the film had shifted something in him after a long, fairly disenchanted stretch with acting.
“Eighteen years ago, when I did Milk, was the last time that I enjoyed the work,” he said in January, explaining that One Battle After Another appealed because “you want to be participating in something that is of your current interest, and with people who are surprising”.
He added that “because of Paul’s movie, I’m in a stage of liking acting”, but also joked that he’s “always got carpentry to fall back on. And surfing”.
As for where he actually was while his category was being read out, things are still hazy. The New York Times has reported that Penn “headed to Europe” ahead of the Oscars and that “his plan as of late last week was to visit Ukraine”, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Those sources did not specify what he would be doing there and noted there was a “possibility” his “itinerary might have changed”. His representative declined to comment to the outlet, so there’s still no neat, on‑the‑record explanation for his no‑show.
The Ukraine connection is very in line with where he’s been directing his energy. In 2022, Penn gave one of his Oscar statuettes to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, later recalling in an interview with Variety that he told him, “I told him to keep it and bring it to Malibu after all this is over and his country is safe.”
He’s also been drawn to projects that echo what’s been happening around the world.
Speaking to Vanity Fair about One Battle After Another, he quoted writer E.L. Doctorow, saying, “The responsibility of the artist is to know the time within which he lived”, and argued that even period films can “reflect something very current” when they “rhyme in history”.
He said the film became “exponentially more timely after production finished”, and that because director Paul Thomas Anderson doesn’t depend on conventional satire, the movie feels “malleable” rather than like a far‑fetched joke.
All of that sits behind the simple awards‑season question: why wasn’t Sean Penn at the Oscars? Officially, there’s no confirmed reason. Unofficially, the picture that’s emerging is of someone who’s more interested in being close to the real‑world stories he cares about than in standing onstage for another gold statue — even when that statue has his name on it.
You can check out the rest of the winners who did attend the Oscars HERE.
Lead image: Getty
