Noah Cyrus, Big Sean, Camila Cabello and Pitbull are among the artists set to perform at this year’s MTV Movie and TV Awards, and Billboard caught up with Cyrus on Thursday (May 4) inside the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, where she’ll hit the stage come showtime, to talk all about what she has planned for Sunday night.
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Wearing a pink track suit paired with gray sneakers, the youngest of the Cyrus siblings said her first time attending and performing at the event is perfectly timed because she just dropped her latest single, “Stay Together,” last month. While she couldn’t share what songs she’ll be performing live, Cyrus explained the inspiration behind all of her music. “Anything that’s really made an impact on my life, I want to get in the studio and write about it,” she said.
Cyrus added that she hopes the audience enjoys her performance, which she’s still in the process of choosing an outfit for. “We have some really cool stuff that’s going to be happening,” Cyrus said. “I want to keep it kind of a secret, but I think the energy will be kind of contagious.”
Even though she’s performed live on TV before — including on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and at the 2017 iHeartRadio Music Awards and last month’s Radio Disney Music Awards — Cyrus said she still gets nervous before performances, usually indicated by her silence about five minutes before going onstage.
However, she said Bruno Mars‘ “24K Magic” inspired her pre-performance ritual, in which Cyrus and her band chant “One, two, three: Pop pop, it’s showtime!” just before they go onstage.
In Cyrus family news, Noah said she can wait for sister Miley Cyrus’ new single “Malibu” — out next Thursday and detailed in Miley’s new Billboard cover story — and added that there’s still time for a collaboration with her. “I think Miley is so talented and I’m really excited for her because she hasn’t had music out for a while,” Cyrus said.
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Hosted by Workaholics and Pitch Perfect star Adam DeVine, the MTV Movie & TV Awards have a lot of new tricks up their sleeve this year, including honoring television shows for the very first time. The show’s executive producer Casey Patterson said MTV decided to add TV to the awards show as the audience’s preferences have evolved.
“We live in an on-demand world — they certainly live in an on-demand world,” Patterson told Billboard. “They don’t make those big distinctions between the size of the screen or the content. There’s such amazing storytelling on TV, it’s epic, it feels filmic in every way.”
Patterson predicts that the audience will be most surprised by host DeVine’s performance. “I think [the audience] gets to see Adam do things in bits and pieces. They know he’s funny from Workaholics, they’ve seen him be funny and sort of do the a cappella thing in Pitch Perfect,” Patterson said. “I think in our opening number, you’ll see everything that Adam’s capable of all in one big mash-up, and it’s a very different open than what you’ve seen on Movie Awards past.”
Patterson also executive produced the awards show’s lead-in, which is a Spider-Man: Homecoming lip-sync battle between the movie’s stars, Tom Holland and Zendaya.
A few of the night’s presenters include Mark Wahlberg, Ansel Elgort, Snoop Dogg and Zac Efron, along with the cast of Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why. Emma Watson, Hugh Jackman, and Trevor Noah will also be in attendance, among others.
The 2017 MTV Movie & TV Awards will air live from the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on Sunday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on MTV.