by The Cowl Editor on January 26, 2017
Arts & Entertainment
by Kerry Torpey `20
A&E Staff
Some of Hollywood’s biggest stars gathered at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on Jan. 18 to attend the People’s Choice Awards. Big names in attendance included Tom Hanks, Robert Downey Jr., Sarah Jessica Parker, Justin Timberlake, and more.
The People’s Choice Awards is one of the only national major award shows in which the winners are chosen by the public. This year, approximately 265 million votes were cast online.
The star-studded night kicked off with an opening monologue from actor and former host of the E! series The Soup, Joel McHale. McHale gave audiences everywhere something to look forward to in the show as he teased that daytime talk show host and comedian Ellen DeGeneres could become the most decorated People’s Choice Awards winner in history.
McHale joked about DeGeneres’ number of awards, saying that Hollywood should “just rename the whole show ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Awards for Achievement in Ellen DeGeneres-ing.’”
In the movie category, Finding Dory took home the award for Favorite Movie. Favorite Movie Actor went to Ryan Reynolds while Jennifer Lawrence received the award for Favorite Movie Actress.
Me Before You, starring Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin, won the award for Favorite Dramatic Movie. Five-time nominee and two time Oscar winner Tom Hanks accepted the award for Favorite Dramatic actor for his role in Sully. In the female section of the same category, Blake Lively won for her role in The Shallows.
Johnny Depp received the Favorite Movie Icon award and attended the show despite still going through his highly publicized divorce and abuse allegations with model and actress, Amber Heard.
The hit TV show The Big Bang Theory accepted the award for Favorite Network TV Comedy for the fifth year in a row with Jim Parsons winning Favorite Comedic TV Actor. Other television winners included: Priyanka Chopra for Favorite Dramatic TV Actress for her role in Quantico, the hit series This Is Us for Favorite New TV Drama, and The Walking Dead for Favorite Cable Sci-fi/Fantasy TV Show.
In the music category, Justin Timberlake took home two awards for Favorite Male Artist and Favorite Song for “Can’t Stop the Feeling.”
There were two musical guests featured for the night: country singer Blake Shelton and the all-girl Pop group Fifth Harmony. Fifth Harmony’s performance was their first following the exit of former band member, Camila Cabello. The group’s performance went well and they left the show with the award for Favorite Group.
Writer and filmmaker Tyler Perry received the award for Favorite Humanitarian. The company Enterprise, who sponsored the show, gave Perry $100,000 to donate to a charity of his choice, after which he selected the Global Medical Relief Fund.
DeGeneres accepted three awards over the course of the night: Favorite Daytime TV Host, Favorite Comedic Collaboration alongside singer Britney Spears, and Favorite Animated Movie Voice for her role as Dory in Finding Dory.
Ellen accepted her 20th award and thanked the public for all their love and support saying, “You are the people who are responsible for me being up here, so I say thank you, people.”