Sean Penn

Actor and director

Film & TV United States Hall No. 43

Profile

Why they shine

Sean Penn has collected three Oscars across two categories and has never appeared to enjoy any of them. The third came on 15 March 2026, at 65, for Best Supporting Actor as Colonel Steven Lockjaw, the volatile, self-maddened officer in Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another. Lockjaw is a white nationalist commander whose fixation on a Black revolutionary exposes the rot inside his own certainty, a part Penn built on his characteristic stillness before violence. He did not attend the ceremony; Kieran Culkin, the previous year's supporting winner, accepted for him with the line that Penn could not be there, or did not want to be.

Full name: Sean Penn
Nationality: United States
Known for: One Battle After Another, Mystic River, Into the Wild
Role: Actor / Director
Oscar wins: Best Supporting Actor, 2026
Signature: Volatile intensity; long still frame before eruption

Record

Honor record

Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor

2026 · Mar 15, 2026

Dolby Theatre, Hollywood

His third Oscar but first in a supporting category, after Best Actor wins for Mystic River in 2004 and Milk in 2009. Penn played Colonel Steven Lockjaw in One Battle After Another and, characteristically, did not attend the ceremony; Kieran Culkin accepted the statuette on his behalf.

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