Alexandra Shipp, who starred in ‘Barbie,’ arrives at the 2024 People’s Choice Awards (Photo by Rich … [+] Polk/NBC via Getty Images).
NBC via Getty Images
This past Sunday, Hollywood celebrated the 49th People’s Choice Awards, hosted by actor Simu Liu. And while much of awards season centers around exclusive voters making their selections, the People’s Choice Awards has always been about highlighting the input of the fans and audiences who are watching the year’s movies and shows.
However, when they are not making the stories and content that show up on our screens, entertainment’s biggest performers and artists also become audience members themselves as they join us in watching the latest in movies and TV. And so, I wondered what titles took over their watch time this year in the moments they switched from performers to audience members.
So, this week, I posed this question to some of the attendees on the People’s Choice Awards carpet.
Actor Anthony Hill from Grey’s Anatomy was quick with his response on the film side, expressing how much he loved Cord Jefferson’s Oscar-nominated film American Fiction. The movie, which has seen great critical acclaim, follows the story of a writer facing the maddening expectations around black authors.
“The storytelling element of that movie is so strong that you can’t leave feeling like, ‘Oh.’ It’s not blasé. You have to actually face what you saw, and in some level discuss it in your life. Apply it to your life, figure out yourself through it,” Hill said.
Hill, who plays Dr. Winston Ndugu on Grey’s Anatomy, later took the awards show stage along with his co-stars when the medical drama won Show of the Year, the biggest television prize of the night.
‘Grey’s Anatomy’s’ Anthony Hill attends the 2024 People’s Choice Awards (Photo by Tommaso … [+] Boddi/WireImage).
WireImage
Sam Song Li, who stars in Netflix’s
NFLX
The Brothers Sun with Michelle Yeoh, also had an Oscar-nominated film as his choice. Li explained how, lately, he’s been spending time exploring the meaning of love and relationships in his own life. And so that experience is what led Celine Song’s feature film debut Past Lives to land so powerfully with him. The film follows childhood friends who grew apart and who, decades later, reunite to explore whether there was a missed connection between them.
Actress Alexandra Shipp chose a more recent film she enjoyed, and was adamant on the carpet in arguing why everyone needs to go out and see David Ayer’s The Beekeeper immediately. The film, which stars action veteran Jason Statham, has seen major box office success so far in earning over $140 million globally and counting.
“This man is so serious about bees, and protecting the hive. And I loved it! In 2024, that’s my favorite movie thus far. Call me crazy, but I’m a thirteen year old boy and I loved it,” Shipp told me.
But the most common movie response from those I asked on the carpet was a film that featured Alexandra Shipp herself, and one that became a national phenomenon.
“Man, it’s still Barbie. I loved Barbie. As a woman that’s been in the entertainment industry, to see something made by women for women about women, it was incredible,” said model and social media star Haley Kalil.
Barbie, based on the popular line of toys, became an inescapable cultural moment when it released in the summer of last year and saw the film ultimately earn over $1.4 billion. And in addition to that the film has also earned eight Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture.
Social Media stars Bobbi Althoff and Sophia Culpo also named Barbie as their movie of choice on the carpet, with Althoff telling me, perhaps facetiously, that it was the only movie she watched this year.
And it turned out that all this enthusiasm for the film on the carpet matched the people’s choice, as by the end of the People’s Choice Awards Barbie took home the award in six categories, including the top prize for Movie of the Year.
Interviewing social media star and podcast host Bobbi Althoff at the People’s Choice Awards arrivals … [+] carpet (Anhar Karim).
Anhar Karim
On the television side of things, when asked to pick the TV show that had the most impact on them in the past year, Jenni “JWoww” Farley and Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino from the People’s Choice nominated Jersey Shore Family Vacation, as well as social media star Chris Olsen, went for Netflix’s newest historical crime drama Griselda.
“I had to like turn it off at some points because it was making me anxious—in a good way! Because it’s a really good show,” Olsen said.
Griselda currently sits within the top 10 most watched shows on Netflix’s English TV list, and has earned its spot there for several weeks now. The show is a dramatic adaptation of the true story behind the infamous Colombian drug lord Griselda Blanco and is made by some of the same team behind Netflix’s hit Narcos franchise.
Musician Jack Gilinsky, of the duo Jack & Jack along with Jack Johnson, told me how much of his TV time in the past year went to watching the show Suits. And while this show has not seen new episodes since 2019, it has enjoyed a massive resurgence this year after landing on Netflix in the U.S. And so Gilinsky was a part of that avid viewership, with Johnson noting his musical partner’s growing appreciation for the show and its characters.
“I’ll randomly catch him acting like Harvey Specter and I’m like—he can pull it off too!” Johnson said of Gilinsky.
Antonia Gentry, from ‘Ginny & Georgia,’ arrives at the 2024 People’s Choice Awards (Photo by Todd … [+] Williamson/NBC via Getty Images).
NBC via Getty Images
And from there of course many other shows got shoutouts from the stars on the carpet. Ginny & Georgia’s Antonia Gentry and Katie Douglas praised the innovation behind The Curse, while the show’s Brianne Howey and creator Sarah Lampert named the reality show The Traitors. The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ Crystal Kung Minkoff told me how much she loves Curb Your Enthusiasm. Mayan Lopez described the impact RuPaul’s Drag Race has had on her. And while so many stars expressed how much they were just fans of the many titles on our screens, those behind the shows kept on reiterating how meaningful it is just to have people watching.
“I mean it feels wonderful. Because the reason you get into storytelling is because you want to connect to other people, right? Like you want to be able to reach out and connect with people you’ve never met,” said Sarah Lampert, creator of the Netflix phenomenon Ginny & Georgia.
“It means so much to me. I think fandoms are one of the most important things in our industry, and their opinions mean a lot to me,” said Ariana Greenblatt, who stars in Barbie.
The People’s Choice Awards is ultimately a celebration of the fans and the audiences who everyday breathe life into these pieces of art by just choosing, out of so many options, to watch and to love the titles that they do. Because whether those fans are from inside the world of entertainment or not, people staying up to keep watching is what helps these stories keep getting told.
The full list of winners from the 2024 People’s Choice Awards can be found here .
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