Sean Penn Skipped the Oscars for His 'Mental Health' and Really Doesn't Like Selfies

Priorities

The One Battle After Another star won Best Supporting Actor at this year's Academy Awards but wasn't present to accept the statuette

Three months after Sean Penn was noticeably absent after winning Best Supporting Actor for his turn as military colonel Steven J. Lockjaw in One Battle After Another at this year’s Oscars, the actor shared why he opted out of the ceremony.

When appearing at the Tribeca Festival in New York on Friday for a conversation with CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins, Penn said that he had deliberately timed his visit to Ukraine to overlap with the Academy Awards.

According to USA Today, he said that the ceremony had “always represented social discomfort to me,” and that he “won’t go anywhere to be with a designated group beyond eight people.” He elaborated, “If you cut out two hours for your night, it gives you 15 minutes per person,” adding that a group larger than that “is just anxiety- and dread-inducing.”