Sean Penn says award shows are ‘dread-provoking,’ vows he’ll ‘never’ attend one again
In Hollywood, it’s one awards show after another.
For Sean Penn, the actor vowed that he isn’t going to attend another ceremony ever again.
“It’s not just [that it’s] an awards show,” Penn, 65, explained while chatting with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Friday at the Tribeca Film Festival, per Variety, about his decision to skip the 2026 Oscars.
The “21 Grams” star — who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for “One Battle After Another” — shared that the ceremonies represent “social discomfort” for him and “too many people.”
“It would be the same if this group was going to an afterparty and one stepped into that,” Penn elaborated. “I’m now down, committed for life, that I won’t go anywhere to be in a designated group beyond eight people.”
At these grand Hollywood events, the “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” actor is made to feel like he only has “15 minutes per person,” which causes him anxiety.
As Penn put it, it is “dread-provoking.”
“The two times I had gone [to the Oscars], I felt relief that I’d won because so many people out there had worked really hard for that,” he expressed. “There’s the politics of that stuff.”
Penn previously took home Best Actor Oscars for “Mystic River” in 2003 and 2008’s “Milk.”
In 2025, the filmmaker starred in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, Teyana Taylor, Benicio del Toro and Chase Infiniti.
The movie won six out of its 13 nominations at the Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Penn said he notified his co-stars that ditching the ceremony would be “better” for his mental health. Instead, he went to Ukraine.
Penn met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, as he continued to show his support for the country amid its war with Russia.
In a video posted to X, Ukrainian Railways CEO Oleksandr Pertsovskyi presented Penn with an “IronOscar” — a handmade statuette created from metal taken from a railcar destroyed by a Russian missile.
“You’re missing the Oscars,” Pertsovskyi began. “Plus, you gave the last one to the president. So we made this one.
“You said the metals survived, so we put some words here that are very special to us. It’s not golden, but it’s very real, and it’s from the bottom of our hearts. It’s important to us.”
Penn, visibly emotional hugged Pertsovskyi, before stating: “These are all treasures, thank you.”
“I really got to enjoy the Academy Awards for the first time,” he told Collins about watching the show from out of the country, per Variety. “It was great.”
Penn came to the decision to no longer attend award shows earlier this year.
“The best that I could ever muster was relief,” he mused. “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.’”
