Real reason Sean Penn wasn’t at Oscars 2026 as ‘One Battle After Another’ star wins Best Supporting Actor
Sean Penn recently joined the ranks of Hollywood acting stalwarts, alongside Daniel Day-Lewis, Ingrid Bergman, Jack Nicholson, and Meryl Streep. The Oscar-winning actor, who was recently awarded for his role in director Clint Eastwood's 'Mystic River' and Gus Van Sant's 'Milk', now holds the rare distinction of bagging the black statuette three times in a row.
Paul Thomas Anderson's 'One Battle After Another', which was leading in the race to the 2026 Oscars, won big at the awards ceremony as expected. Nevertheless, Penn himself was absent from the awards ceremony, and the previous year's Best Supporting Actor winner and 'Succession' star, Kieran Culkin, accepted the award on his behalf.
Despite being recognized as an actor par excellence by the Academy three times in a row, Penn seems to be remarkably indifferent to his laurels. The 65-year-old actor had previously foreshadowed his absence from the coveted awards ceremony when he failed to turn up at both the latest editions of the BAFTA Awards and the SAG Actors' Awards.
The situation is all the more noteworthy since Penn was leading his category in both of these awards. The only time Penn actually showed up to an award ceremony in recent years was at the 2026 Golden Globes, where his indoor smoking attracted considerable attention. A new report by the New York Times has revealed that, instead of travelling to Los Angeles, California, to attend the 2026 Oscars, Penn flew to Ukraine via Europe.
The report further added that Penn's plan "was to visit Ukraine, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter." A representative for Penn declined to comment on the subject.
Over the years, Penn has established himself as somewhat of a dissident in Hollywood. During the 2004 Oscars, Penn began his acceptance speech for 'Mystic River' with the caustic line, "If there’s one thing that actors know, other than that there weren’t any WMDs."
Although the exact purpose of Penn's trip to Ukraine remains unclear as of this writing, it would constitute the latest development in his activism if it were to be true. Back in 2022, Penn had visited Ukraine and presented President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with one of his Oscar statuettes, adding that it could be melted down to manufacture bullets.
Penn has also been wary of the Academy's indecision in terms of expressing condemnation for global conflicts when he accused the Academy in 2024 of 'extraordinary cowardice when it comes to being part of the bigger world of expression, and in fact, have largely been part of limiting the imagination and very limiting of different cultural expressions.' In other news, Paul Thomas Anderson won the Oscar for Best Director as well as the one for Best Adapted Screenplay.
