Sean Penn chooses Ukraine visit over receiving Oscar for One Battle After Another; President Volodymyr Zelenskyy calls him a ‘true friend’ | Hollywood News

4 min readKyivMar 17, 2026 12:06 PM On Sunday, Sean Penn won his third Oscar at the 98th Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor for his performance of Colonel Steven J Lockjaw in Paul Thomas Anderson’s period political drama One Battle After Another. However, he gave the ceremony a miss, prompting the presenter, actor Kieran Culkin, to receive the award on his behalf. “He couldn’t be here tonight, or he didn’t want to,” Kieran Culkin said on the stage, sporting his irreverent humour.
The latter case turned out to be true as Penn was instead spotting in Ukraine. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted a photo of him meeting with Penn on his social media on Monday, with the message “Because of you, Sean, we know what a true friend of Ukraine is. You have been with Ukraine since the first day of the full-scale war. And today as well. And we know that you will continue to stand with our country and our people.”

Sean, thanks to you, we know what a true friend of Ukraine is.You have stood with Ukraine since the first day of the full-scale war.This is still true today.And we know that you will continue to stand with our country and our people. pic.twitter.com/wGneO1rqJI
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 16, 2026
Penn has been quite vocal in his support for Zelenskyy and Ukraine since the first day of their war against Russia. In 2025, Penn and rock star Bono made an impassioned plea at the Cannes film festival for the West to stand Ukraine, posing for pictures on the red carpet with Ukrainian soldiers. He has even co-directed Superpower, a 2023 documentary on Zelenskyy. An admiring portrait of Zelensky about his rise from comedian to war leader when Russia invaded in 2022, it premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2023.
In 2022, Penn lent one of his Oscar statuettes to Zelenskyy, a former actor himself. Sources told AFP that while it’s a personal visit, Penn may have plans to visit the war front as well, in eastern Ukraine. In an interview with AFP in February, Zelensky led One Battle After Another among his most recently watched movies, which he liked.
It’s not the first time Penn has been an Oscars no-show. He’s previously skipped the show three times, when he was nominated for Dead Man Walking in 1996, Sweet and Lowdown in 2000, and I Am Sam in 2002. Penn also bowed out from attending the BAFTAs and Actor Awards this year.

Penn did attend the ceremony when he previously won two Academy Awards for Best Actor, for Clint Eastwood’s 2003 crime drama Mystic River, and for portraying San Francisco politician and LGBTQ+ rights pioneer Harvey Milk in Gus Van Sant’s 2008 biopic Milk. Penn has now become the male actor with most acting wins, tying with Jack Nicholson, Walter Brennan, and Daniel Day-Lewis in the process.
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Other nominees in the Best Supporting Actor category this year included fellow One Battle After Another cast member Benicio Del Toro, Delroy Lindo for Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, Jacob Elordi for Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, and Stellan Skarsgård for Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value.