Two-time Academy Award winner Sean Penn slammed the Oscars while speaking — and chain-smoking — at a press conference during the Marrakech Film Festival.
“The Academy have exercised really extraordinary cowardice when it comes to being part of the bigger world of expression, and in fact, have largely been part of limiting the imagination and very limiting of different cultural expressions,” the “Mystic River” star, 64, said, Tuesday during the annual event, according to Variety.
“So I don’t … get very excited about what we’ll call the Academy Awards [except for] when a film like ‘The Florida Project,’ or ‘I’m Still Here,’ or, you know, ‘Emilia Perez,’ of the things that are likely to happen this year.”
He went on his anti-Oscars rant while applauding Ali Abbasi’s Donald Trump biopic “The Apprentice,” which has been a controversial film considering the president-elect’s impending inauguration as the 47th president of the United States and his disparaging remarks about the movie.
“When something sneaks through, it’s to be celebrated,” Penn argued. “It’s jaw-dropping how afraid this [so-called] business of mavericks is of a great film like that,” he continued.
“One with great, great acting. [It’s amazing] that they too can be as afraid as a piddly little Republican congressman.”
“The Apprentice” is not expected to make an impression in the upcoming awards season.
Trump, 78, criticized the film as a “fake and classless” movie and said he hopes it will “bomb” in an Oct. 14 post to his social media site, Truth Social.
He added, “It’s a cheap, defamatory and politically disgusting hatchet job, put out right before the 2024 Presidential Election, to try and hurt the Greatest Political Movement in the History of our Country.”
Furthermore, Sebastian Stan, who portrays the reality star-turned-politician in “The Apprentice”, claimed his peers shunned him for partaking in the movie and that he was unable to participate in Variety’s “Actors on Actors” series because his colleagues refused to interview him.
Plus, Abassi claimed to the Hollywood Reporter that Netflix turned down the film because “they have millions of MAGA subscribers.”
“If you’re in the toilet paper business, you don’t want to alienate half the ass-wiping public,” the director bluntly added.
Penn is known for being a political activist and an outspoken critic of Trump’s policies, so it’s no surprise he is a fan of the film — which reportedly has a scene depicting him raping his first wife, Ivana Trump.
Penn — who won best actor at the Oscars for “Mystic River” and “Milk” — was honored with a lifetime achievement award at the Marrakech Film Festival on Sunday and encouraged people to be politically incorrect, as reported by Variety.
“Around the world [there is] this demand for diversity — but not diversity of behavior and not diversity of opinion or language,” he told the audience.
“I would just encourage everybody to be as politically incorrect as their heart desires and to engage diversity and to keep telling those stories, and I’m very proud and happy to be here.”
The decorated actor and director notably made his red carpet debut with his 30-year-old girlfriend, Valeria Nicov, at the film festival over the weekend.
