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After missing both the BAFTAs and the Actor Awards, it appears Sean Penn is also not in attendance at the Oscars this evening.
Penn, a two-time winner (for the films Mystic River and Milk) is nominated this evening for his performance in One Battle After Another. In 2022, he gave one of his Oscar statuettes to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. “I told him to keep it and bring it to Malibu after all this is over and his country is safe,” he said.
Tim P. Whitby//Getty Images
Benicio del Toro, Chase Infiniti, Leonardo DiCaprio, Teyana Taylor and Sean Penn at the One Battle After Another London premiere.
In One Battle After Another, Penn plays antagonist Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw. “Eighteen years ago, when I did Milk, was the last time that I enjoyed the work,” Penn revealed in January to W Magazine. “But you want to be participating in something that is of your current interest, and with people who are surprising. Because of Paul’s movie, I’m in a stage of liking acting. But I’ve always got carpentry to fall back on. And surfing.”
Penn, who has been outspoken about his support for Ukraine, has been drawn to films that grapple with world politics. “I’ve quoted this a lot over the years. E.L. Doctorow had a line: The responsibility of the artist is to know the time within which he lived,” he told Vanity Fair. “So somebody can make a period film, but in doing that, the good ones reflect something very current. Not modernizing it, but there’s something that is rhyming in history. I think that this became exponentially more timely after production finished and we watched, kind of shaking our heads. It’s also a great thing that because he doesn’t have a conventional dependence on what satire is, the movie is malleable. It’s not dependent on being a far-fetched idea that makes us laugh. And now that some of it is not at all far-fetched it takes on a more full quality.”
Next up for Penn is a film with Tom Hardy. “I’m not looking for anything next is the answer,” he said. “I feel very comfortable that I’ll know if I’m going to do something. Now I’m focused on directing, and it’s my job to provide better. I think I’ve done a good job of putting great people together, more often than not.”
Emily Burack (she/her) is the Senior News Editor for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, celebrities, the royals, and a wide range of other topics. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma, a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Twitter and Instagram.