“One Battle After Another” took home several Oscars earlier this year, including one for Sean Penn as Best Supporting Actor. But, Penn’s co-star Regina Hall joked that that particular win was “embarrassing,” considering how “shameless” his campaign was.
The actress stopped by “The Tonight Show” on Thursday night, in support of “Scary Movie,” which hits theaters this weekend and marks her return to the franchise, alongside Anna Faris and the Wayans brothers. As she sat down, host Jimmy Fallon immediately noted that the last time she appeared on the show was for “One Battle After Another,” before its Oscar haul, and asked her about the night of the awards.
“Sean Penn won! Yeah, and that was embarrassing. You saw how hard he campaigned?” Hall joked.
At that, Fallon and the audience promptly cracked up, as Penn famously doesn’t care much about awards ceremonies, and doesn’t campaign at all. Such was the case once again for the Oscars this year.
“I mean, he was everywhere, it was shameless!” Hall continued joking. “It was desperate! He wanted it, yeah.”
Penn didn’t even attend this year’s Oscars, so he missed accepting his award in person. Instead, presenter Kieran Culkin accepted it on his behalf, and made sure to joke about it when he did.
“Sean Penn couldn’t be here this evening…or didn’t want to,” he said with a grin. “So, I’ll be accepting this award on his behalf.”
Penn did appear the Golden Globes in January, but was absent from the Critics Choice Awards, BAFTAs and the Oscars nominee luncheon as awards season truly got underway. His absence at the Oscars marked the first no-show of that category’s winner since 1987.
You can watch Regina Hall’s full interview with Fallon in the video above.
