Sean Penn stops attending award shows after selfie overload, says ‘It’s bad for everyone’

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Actor Sean Penn revealed during a conversation with CNN anchor Kaitlin Collins at the 25th annual Tribeca Festival a dislike for selfies and a lifelong commitment to avoiding public gatherings involving more than eight people.

The actor also discussed the reasons behind his absence from recent award shows. During the conversation, he spoke candidly about social anxiety, discomfort in large crowds, and why avoiding such events is better for his mental health.

Sean Penn opens up about anxiety around large gatherings

During the discussion at Spring Studios as part of the Tribeca Festival, Penn explained that his absence from the Oscars was not due to the ceremony itself, saying the same discomfort would have been felt at any large social gathering, including an afterparty.

He stated, “It’s not just [that it’s] an awards show, It would be the same if this group was going to an afterparty and one stepped into that. That always represented social discomfort for me; too many people. I’m now down, committed for life, that I won’t go anywhere to be in a designated group beyond eight people.”

Penn said large gatherings create anxiety because they only allow brief interactions. According to him, such environments “gives you 15 minutes per person,” which triggers his anxiety and is “dread-provoking.”

Reflecting on the two previous occasions when he attended the Oscars, Penn said he mainly felt relief if he won because it recognized the hard work of many people involved in a project. He also noted, “There’s the politics of that stuff.”

Before this year’s Academy Awards, he said discussions with colleagues from 'One Battle After Another' led to a shared agreement that skipping the ceremony would be “better for my mental health,” prompting travel to Ukraine instead, where efforts have focused on drawing attention to the country’s ongoing war with Russia and its need for Western support.

Sean Penn says Golden Globes experience cemented his decision

Although Penn skipped the Oscars, he still watched the ceremony from Ukraine, where it aired between 2 am and 5 am local time. He said the experience allowed him to enjoy the event more than ever before, “I really got to enjoy the Academy Awards for the first time, It was great.”

He explained that his decision to stop attending awards shows came after attending this year’s Golden Globes. He said that throughout his years attending such events, the strongest feeling he experienced was relief once they were over.

“The best that I could ever muster was relief,” he said adding, “Knowing that I wasn’t going to do that anymore, I did one before that this year. I went to the Golden Globes; I’d never been to that before. And that’s where I decided, ‘I can’t do this.’”

Penn stressed that his discomfort was not rooted in criticism of Hollywood culture. He said, "It’s the ninth person, and it’s not the low-hanging fruit of ‘I don’t wanna be around all this fake Hollywood’ or something."

Sean Penn says selfie requests reinforced his decision to avoid award shows

Sean Penn posed with Sara Murphy, Benicio del Toro, Leonardo DiCaprio and Paul Thomas Anderson at the 83rd Golden Globe Awards (Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Moët & Chandon)

The actor also recalled being surrounded by people requesting selfies as he was leaving the Golden Globes. The experience reinforced his decision to avoid large public events, “People should not do selfies ever with anyone. It’s bad for you; it’s bad for everyone.”

He said, adding that even in emotionally compelling situations, answer would remain “a hard no.”