Why did Sean Penn skip the 98th Academy Awards, where he won Best Supporting Actor?
During a Friday afternoon conversation with CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins during the 25th Tribeca Film Festival, Penn explained why he wasn’t present to accept his third Oscar.
Turns out, he has decided to stop attending awards shows altogether — and other large public gatherings — because they trigger his “anxiety.” He explained that the problem is not the Oscars themselves but being part of any large social group, saying that events with many people are “dread-provoking.” As a result, he has committed to never again attending a “designated group beyond eight people.”
Before this year’s Oscars, Penn and his colleagues from “One Battle After Another” agreed it was “better for my mental health” if he stayed away from the ceremony.
Penn said his final decision came after attending this year’s Golden Globe Awards, where he realized, “I can’t do this.” Leaving the event, he was overwhelmed by people asking for selfies, an experience that reinforced his view that such encounters are unhealthy.
People should not do selfies ever with anyone. It’s bad for you; it’s bad for everyone. It’s a soul-sucker. The Holocaust grandmother and her 6-year-old paraplegic wheeling over? It’s a hard no.
Instead of attending the Oscars, Penn traveled to Ukraine. He said he was grateful to watch the ceremony remotely, from 2 a.m. to 5 a.m. local time, admitting, “I really got to enjoy the Academy Awards for the first time. It was great.”
Quite frankly, Penn’s complete indifference toward awards season is refreshing. He doesn’t seem to care about any of the campaigning, nor does he crave any sort of acceptance from his peers. Penn did minimal awards-season promotion, barely appeared at ceremonies, and when he did attend the Golden Globes, he famously spent much of the evening chain-smoking at his table.
Even so, a great performance is a great performance, and the Academy made the right call in awarding Penn the Oscar for his darkly hilarious turn as Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw — a character whose rigid, stick-up-the-ass strut is destined to live on in the cinematic time-capsule.