Oscar 2026, where was Sean Penn and why he was not at the Academy Awards ceremony

At the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, the envelope is opened, but the winner is not there. The 98th edition of the Academy Awards, held on March 15, 2026 with Conan O'Brien as host, will go down in history as the night when Sean Penn turned his absence into a political message of rare power.

Awarded as best supporting actor for “One Battle After Another”, the actor skipped the ceremony, allowing Kieran Culkin to present the category and accept the statuette on his behalf. With a touch of irony, Culkin stated from the stage: “He’s not here tonight, maybe he couldn’t or didn’t want to,” immediately triggering media buzz and debate on social platforms.

The absence was not a last-minute whim: Penn had already embarked on a “season of subtraction”, skipping the BAFTA and Actor Awards. According to reports from the New York Times, picked up by outlets like Daily Beast and El País, the actor was traveling to Ukraine during the hours of the ceremony.

This choice is consistent with his openly activist profile, which has strengthened since the beginning of the Russian invasion in 2022. Over the years, Penn has documented the conflict with the film “Superpower”, met with soldiers, and made symbolic gestures of strong impact: from lending one of his Oscars to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to threatening, in 2022, to melt down his statuettes if the Ukrainian leader was not allowed to speak at the ceremony.

Giving up the most listened-to pulpit in the world is, for him, a way to remain where cinema intersects with the harshest reality.

Although marked by the absence of its most controversial protagonist, the evening definitively crowned “One Battle After Another” (also titled “Una battaglia dopo l’altra”) and its director, Paul Thomas Anderson. The work, with its strong political and spectacular charge, dominated the awards season and garnered numerous accolades, winning six Oscars including best picture, best director, best adapted screenplay, and editing.

This edition also marked a historic transition with the introduction of the new award for best casting. The inaugural recognition went to Cassandra Kulukundis, a long-time collaborator of Anderson, proving how the direction of actors and the chemistry between performers have been decisive in the narrative architecture of the film.