Sean Penn “Got To Enjoy” Oscars While Skipping Ceremony

After skipping out on this year’s 98th Academy Awards, Sean Penn enjoyed watching the awards show on television for once.

The 3x Oscar winner, who most recently won Best Supporting Actor for One Battle After Another, explained that the awards ceremony has “always represented social discomfort to me,” which is why he wasn’t present to accept the award in person.

“I won’t go anywhere to be with a designated group beyond eight people,” Penn said during a conversation on Friday at the Tribeca Film Festival, according to USA Today. “If you cut out two hours for your night, it gives you 15 minutes per person.”

Noting that any more than that “is just anxiety- and dread-inducing,” Penn said that “everybody understood” on the One Battle After Another team why he chose to miss the event, where the film also took home Best Picture.

“They know me, and they felt that it was better for my mental health,” said Penn, adding: “Having only felt relief a couple other times, I got to be excited watching the awards. I really got to enjoy the Academy Awards for the first time. It was great.”

Penn admitted he chose to schedule a trip to meet with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during the Oscars telecast, so he wouldn’t have to attend.

Having previously won Best Actor for Mystic River (2003) and Milk (2008), Penn explained “the best I could ever muster was relief” over the victories, knowing that the people involved with those movies were supporting him.

The actor opted to sit out the rest of awards season after attending the 83rd Golden Globes in January, noting he couldn’t handle “all the selfies” and small talk.

“People should not do selfies with anyone ever. It’s bad for you,” said Penn. “The Holocaust grandmother and her 6-year-old paraplegic [grandson] wheeling over? A hard no.”

Penn previously gave one of his Oscars to Zelenskyy, explaining it was inspired by his “continuing shame towards the Motion Picture Academy,” after the Academy did not invite the Ukrainian president to speak amid their 2023 documentary Superpower.

After Penn skipped this year’s ceremony, Zelenskyy called him “a true friend of Ukraine” for standing by the country since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, CEO of Ukrainian Railways, even presented him with an Oscar-shaped award made from war-damaged metal of a Ukrainian railcar.