This week’s certainly been busy, in part, because I was lucky enough to score a gig as an onstage audience member (thanks, Gotham Casting!) for the 39th Annual People’s Choice Awards, Wednesday night at the Nokia Theater.
As events played out, I ended up inviting a good friend, Shannon Wagner (who appeared in a couple of my early films in high school) as my guest, so she could join me in the onstage audience.
On Monday, we had a rehearsal from 6-8pm, and then returned to the Nokia on Wednesday at 10:30am to prep for the 6pm broadcast (so it could air live in prime time on the East Coast and, later, at 9pm PT on the West Coast).
When I first saw the stage at the Monday rehearsal, I was totally blown away. It was an impressive sight and helped to build the feeling of excitement and anticipation. The onstage audience consisted of four boxes of theater seats. Lucky for us, Shannon and I managed to score front row seats in our box. Looking out into the crowd, it was awesome to see the seat markers for people like Robert Downey Jr., Ellen Degeneres, Jennifer Lawrence, and, of course, the lovely Emma Watson.
This year’s show was hosted by Kaley Cuoco, with musical performances by Christina Aguilera, Alicia Keys, and Jason Aldean. There was also a presentation of the first-ever Favorite Humanitarian Award, given to one of my favorite actresses, Sandra Bullock.
When Adam Sandler accepted his award for Favorite Comedic Movie Actor, he gave a speech that only he would come up with. If you look just to his right you can see me laughing the whole time, especially when he says his favorite James Bond movie is Forrest Gump.
Having seen the seat markers during rehearsal, I knew where Emma Watson would be sitting, and was admittedly a little disappointed when she wasn’t sitting there as the show began. But you can tell by my reaction that I was very pleased when she won the award for Favorite Dramatic Movie Actress.
Working with Gotham Casting and the People’s Choice Awards was an amazing experience and everything went smoothly. Too bad the afterparty never really materialized because I met some very cool people and had a fantastic time!
