Sean Penn Won't Attend Awards Shows Again, Explains His Decision to Skip the 2026 Oscars

The 65-year-old actor has made a definitive call: audiences won't see him on any awards show red carpet again.

Penn skipped this year's Academy Awards ceremony, where he took home the Best Supporting Actor trophy for his performance in One Battle After Another. During an appearance at the 2026 Tribeca Film Festival, he sat down with CNN's Kaitlan Collins to discuss his choice and what it means going forward.

"It's not just [that it's] an awards show," Penn explained, according to Variety. For him, these events trigger feelings of "social discomfort" and involve "too many people." He drew a comparison to other group settings, noting that his anxiety around crowded spaces has become a dealbreaker. "I'm now down, committed for life, that I won't go anywhere to be in a designated group beyond eight people."

The actor pointed to the structured nature of these galas as particularly problematic. Ceremonies, he said, only "give you 15 minutes per person," a dynamic that fuels his anxiety and creates what he described as "dread-provoking" situations.

Penn's two previous Best Actor wins—for Milk in 2008 and Mystic River in 2003—gave him some perspective on the experience. "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 reflected. "There's the politics of that stuff."

This time around, rather than attending the ceremony, Penn traveled to Ukraine to demonstrate solidarity during the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. He told his One Battle After Another co-stars that skipping the event would be "better for my mental health." Watching from abroad, he found the experience surprisingly rewarding. "I really got to enjoy the Academy Awards for the first time," he said. "It was great."

The tipping point came earlier this year when Penn attended the Golden Globes for the first time. That experience sealed his decision. "I went to the Golden Globes; I'd never been to that before. And that's where I decided, 'I can't do this,'" Penn shared.

Looking back, he acknowledged that attending awards shows has never truly brought him satisfaction. "The best that I could ever muster was relief," he said of his past experiences.