It’s awards season in the movie industry, and whether you realize it or not, there is a lively and robust corner of the internet that is very into such things and very good at predicting the winners. Some websites even go as far as providing credible handicapping of the potential winners based on precursor awards like the voting patterns of various guilds.
That’s probably why it doesn’t feel like there’s nearly as many shocks at The Oscars each year. As far as I know, however, the appetite for predicting The People’s Choice Awards isn’t quite so hearty. Most viewers are really flying blind and just going off hunches, which is probably why there was so much collective shock when the winner of the Action Movie Star Of The Year was announced and rather than Tom Cruise, Keanu Reeves or the other more conventional nominees, Rachel Zegler was announced as the winner.
The star of The Hunger Games prequel gave a lovely speech about feeling like she belonged. It went over very well with her fans on social media, but the collective reaction from most people was more one of confusion. I had no idea she was even nominated, and if I was asked for a list of the most likely people to win a Best Action Movie Star award for their work last year, I probably would have needed at least 50 choices to get to her. That was certainly the sentiment of this post, which already has more than 60,000 likes…
Keanu Reeves fell down 50 flights of steps and Tom Cruise drove a motorbike off a cliff though https://t.co/FswQW8IEEZFebruary 19, 2024
It’s not just that one outlier either. If you look underneath most of the generic social media posts blandly and without opinion announcing her win, they’re almost entirely filled with users expressing confusion, with many not sure what she was actually nominated for. The answer is The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes. Zegler was very good in it and did her share of action scenes, though it’s obviously not the traditional Arnold Schwarzenegger style role people might assume would be victorious in a category like this.
The reaction is far from universally negative though. The Hunger Games has a really passionate online fanbase, and Rachel Zegler herself has many supporters. I swam through hundreds of comments as prep to do this story, and I’d estimate at least one fourth or one third of all the replies was extremely positive. Voters for The People’s Choice Awards tend to be younger and probably more online than the average person, and Rachel Zegler has millions of online fans, who have been particularly vocal about their support for her following all the Snow White controversy.
A video of her boyfriend Josh Andrés Rivera celebrating her win has thousands of likes, and the video of her speech has thousands more…
Rachel Zegler’s speech for winning Action Star Of The Year at the PCA’s! pic.twitter.com/R27MG7hzOEFebruary 19, 2024
We could all argue until we go to sleep tonight about whether Rachel Zegler deserved to be nominated in a category like this, but I think we can all agree that it’s nice to have some award shows that aren’t more of the same. The prestigious BAFTAs gave out their trophies over the weekend, and while it was a lovely ceremony, it was also largely the same movies we’ll see at this year’s Oscars. The People’s Choice Awards, however, is a very obvious departure, and if you don’t believe that from this story, I’d recommend you check out Adam Sandler’s speech he gave after winning The Icon Award, which he hilariously did as if he just won People’s Sexist Man Alive.
