Sean Penn Is Upset He’s Out of the Oscar Race with ‘Tree of Life’

The big winner at this year’s edition of the Cannes Film Festival was “Tree of Life,” from director Terrence Malick, Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and Jessica Chastain. Penn is reportedly very upset that his role has been heavily edited and he’s no longer in the Oscar race.

Even before the film premiered at the prestigious film festival, critics were praising Malick for yet another masterpiece, saying that all three actors in the film had a good Oscar vehicle on their hands.

Then, after the film came out, Sean Penn’s name was no longer mentioned in connection to the Academy Awards because, PageSix says, his role has been so heavily edited he’s hardly in the film now.

This would explain why, in a recent interview, Penn seemed to diss Malick by saying that he didn’t see any of the emotion in the script in the film and that the famed director failed to tell him what the project was all about.

“I didn’t at all find on the screen the emotion of the script, which is the most magnificent one that I’ve ever read… Frankly, I’m still trying to figure out what I’m doing there and what I was supposed to add… Terry himself never managed to explain it to me clearly,” he is cited as saying in a new interview with a French publication.

According to PageSix, this is a classic case of sour grapes: upset that he’s been cut from the Oscar race, Penn is lashing out in public at Malick, making it sound like his movie is not all it’s cracked up to be.

“Sources tell us Penn’s role was much larger in the script than what ended up on-screen. And critics noted that Penn’s part, which bookends the picture, is the smallest of the core actors’, including Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain,” the e-zine says.

“Last winter, blogs buzzed that Penn would be an Oscar shoo-in as Best Actor. Now he’s left out of that conversation,” PageSix adds.

“Tree of Life” came out in US theaters in limited release on May 27, 2011.