Jennifer Coolidge showed her support for the Writers Guild of America Sunday amid the ongoing writers strike, while accepting the Comedic Genius award in a clip for the 2023 MTV Movie & TV Awards.
‘Almost all great comedy starts with great writers,’ The White Lotus star said in her speech. ‘I just think as a proud member of SAG, I stand here before you tonight side-by-side with my sisters and brothers from the WGA that are fighting right now, fighting for the rights of artists everywhere.
She added, ‘I think of the words of Shakespeare where he once said, you know, the play is the thing. Well, I don’t want to put words in his mouth or anything but I think what he really meant was it’s everything!’
The Last Of Us star Pedro Pascal won the honor for Best Hero to kick off the award announcements on Sunday.
Pascal prevailed over a field including Andor’s Diego Luna, Wednesday’s Jenna Ortega, Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania’s Paul Rudd and Top Gun: Maverick’s Tom Cruise for the honors.
Solidarity: Jennifer Coolidge showed her support for the Writers Guild of America Sunday while accepting the Comedic Genius award at the 2023 MTV Movie & TV Awards Sunday
‘I want to say thank you, MTV Movie and TV awards,’ Pascal said in his acceptance speech. ‘I am a child of MTV. This means the absolute world to me. The people at MTV told me that 77.5 million people voted this year. Which blows my mind and just makes it such an honor.’
He continued, ‘I wish we could all be together so that I can look into your eyes and tell you that all young people in the world are my heroes and I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you. I want to say that you deserve a world that serves your interests.
‘You deserve to be healthy. You deserve to be safe. You deserve for your individual rights to be fought for and protected. You deserve real heroes in this world because you are real heroes to me. And I love you. Thank you. Thank you.’
Cruise was named the winner for Best Performance in a Movie for Top Gun: Maverick, besting fellow nominees Austin Butler (Elvis), Florence Pugh (Don’t Worry Darling), KeKe Palmer (Nope) and Michael B. Jordan (Creed III).
Cruise showed off his trademark showmanship as he delivered his acceptance speech from the air in a jet.
‘Hi, everyone, thank you so much for this award,’ the perennial A-lister said. ‘I make these films for you. I love you. I love entertaining you. How much you enjoy it, how much you appreciate it. There is no better feeling and I hope you enjoy this.
‘Dead reckoning coming out in July. It’s a wild ride. Have a wonderful summer. Thank you again for letting me entertain you. It’s an absolute privilege. We’ll see you at the movies.’
The White Lotus star said in her speech: ‘Almost all great comedy starts with great writers’
The American Pie alum paid tribute to her writing peers in accepting the Comedic Genius honors
Cruise was named the winner for Best Performance in a Movie for Top Gun: Maverick
Cruise showed off his trademark showmanship as he delivered his acceptance speech from the air in a jet
The Last Of Us star Pedro Pascal won the honor for Best Hero at the 2023 MTV Movie & TV Awards Sunday
The beloved leading man praised young people in his speech, saying, ‘You deserve real heroes in this world because you are real heroes to me’
The Kardashians were named Best Docu-reality Series over Jersey Shore Family Vacation, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Family Reunion: Love & Hip Hop Edition and Vanderpump Rules.
In the category of Breakthrough Performance, Stranger Things star Joseph Quinn was crowned with the honor over fellow nominees Bad Bunny (Bullet Train), Bella Ramsey (The Last Of Us), Emma D’Arcy (House of the Dragon), and Rachel Sennott (Bodies Bodies Bodies).
The 2023 MTV Movie & TV Awards aired Sunday from the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California in a pre-taped broadcast amid the commencement of the WGA writers’ earlier this week.
Films including Avatar: The Way Of Water, Elvis, Nope and Top Gun: Maverick are among those competing for the Best Movie award, while The Last Of Us, Stranger Things, Wednesday, The White Lotus, Yellowstone and Yellowjackets are among the nominees in the Best Show category.
The long-running awards show is one of the first victims of the ongoing dispute between the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and the Writers Guild of America union.
Officials from the Writers Guild had pledged to picket at the event in Southern California – which will would have put celebrities in the awkward position of crossing the line – until MTV scuttled the live event Saturday evening.
MTV executive producer Bruce Gillmer said in a statement, ‘We’re pivoting away from a live event,’ according to the AP.
Gillmer said that the pre-taped format enables the network ‘to produce a memorable night full of exclusive sneak peaks, irreverent categories our audience has come to expect, and countless moments that will both surprise and delight.’
Writers are now on strike and picketing studios, leading the host Drew Barrymore to announce she was dropping out last Sunday.
The 48-year-old actress-turned-talk show host had been set to MC the festivities, but she is now putting her clout behind writers struggling to earn better pay and guarantees on staffing, as studios increasingly try to limit the size of writers’ rooms and shrink the number of episodes per series.
‘I have listened to the writers, and in order to truly respect them, I will pivot from hosting the MTV Movie & TV Awards live in solidarity with the strike,’ Barrymore told Variety. ‘Everything we celebrate and honor about movies and television is born out of their creation.’
Barrymore added that she’ll be watching the show from home, and she stills plans to return as host next year.
Though she won’t be at the Barker Hangar in person, she may still be in pre-taped sketches that were filmed prior to the start of the strike.
The labor action has also led the awards show to cancel its red carpet festivities, and other stars may also drop out to show support to strikers.
On Thursday, Vanderpump Rules star Lala Kent also announced she was no longer attending as a show of solidarity.
‘Although Vanderpump Rules falls under the unscripted sector of TV, that is not an excuse for me to remain silent and carry on as if there isn’t so much at stake for every writer and their families,’ she told The Hollywood Reporter in a statement. ‘We have to protect our creators and I hope you’ll stand with me and many others as we do so until we reach a resolution (hopefully very soon).’
The White Lotus star Jennifer Coolidge, who appeared in the first two-seasons of the hit HBO dramedy, has a chance to continue her streak of awards-season wins with the Most Frightened Performance prize for her work in the Sicily-set second season.
She is also slated to receive the Comedic Genius award, though it’s unclear if she will still attend amid the ongoing strike.
The original list of presenters included recent Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis, Gal Gadot, Tiffany Haddish, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Lil Dicky’s Dave Burd, along with several stars from Yellowjackets, Transformers: Rise Of The Beats and Joy Ride, including Oscar nominee Stephanie Hsu, though some may opt to join Barrymore and Kent in boycotting the show.
Riley Keough, Ayo Edebiri, Kaia Gerber, Bodies Bodies Bodies star Rachel Sennott, Camila Morrone, Suki Waterhouse and The Little Mermaid’s Halle Bailey are also expected to appear.
Top Gun: Maverick and the shows Stranger Things and The Last Of Us scored the most nominations of any films and series.
Audiences enthralled by the ongoing ‘Scandoval’ on Vanderpump Rules will get to see the Bravo series face off against Jersey Shore: Family Vacation, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Family Reunion: Love & Hip Hop Edition and The Kardashians.
As in previous years, the show will feature gender-neutral award categories.
The show, which had previously been split over two days for scripted and unscripted content, had been condensed back into a single evening this year.
The MTV Movie & TV Awards airs on Sunday, May 7, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on MTV. It will be simulcast on BET, BETHer, Comedy Central, CMT, Logo, MTV2, Nickelodeon, Paramount Network, Pop, TV Land and VH1.
Viewers can also stream the show on Paramount+.