This actor has three Oscars. Wait, how does he have three Oscars?

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Six weeks after the 2026 Oscars celebrated Hollywood’s best of the best of the past year, only one image is still rattling around in my head from the past year of movies.

It’s not Jessie Buckley’s haunting wails of grief in Hamnet, or Amy Madigan’s diabolical, lipstick-smeared grin in Weapons, or the remarkable whirling blues soundtrack of Sinners.

No, it’s the image of Sean Penn as Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw in the best-picture-winning One Battle After Another, smacking his lips and sucking his teeth constantly, for absolutely no reason, on his way to a victory for best supporting actor. It’s unfortunately emblematic of the past four decades of the Sean Penn experience: self-indulgent, over the top and critically acclaimed.

Only eight actors in Hollywood have won three or more Oscars – it’s a who’s who of the greatest thespians to appear in film: Katharine Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Daniel Day-Lewis, Frances McDormand … and now, somehow, Sean Penn.

Penn is not a terrible actor per se. He’s a strong........

© The Age