Sean Penn Gets One-of-a-Kind Oscar Statuette Crafted From War Ruins

American actor and filmmaker Sean Penn was bestowed with a unique honour after his 2026 Academy Award win for Best Supporting Actor for his character in One Battle After Another. The filmmaker, 65, did not attend the 98th Academy Awards ceremony to collect his third Oscar in person; instead, Kieran Culkin presented this year’s Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, accepting the award on Penn’s behalf.

The actor was photographed in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. On Tuesday, 17 March, the CEO of Ukrainian Railways, Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, presented Penn with an Oscar statuette made of metal from a train damaged in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine War. “You’re missing Oscars… So we made this one,” Pertsovskyi says to Penn in the video, per the BBC. “This is from the railcar that was damaged by the Russians.”

Briefly after the 2026 Academy Awards, The New York Times reported that Penn travelled to Europe days before the Oscars and intended to spend time in Ukraine rather than attend the show, citing two anonymous sources.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had also shared a photo of himself and Penn speaking together with the caption, “Sean, thanks to you, we know what a true friend of Ukraine is.”