It’s not a time to idly let your favorite movies go unrecognized. Is it time for Rupert Grint and Emma Watson to steal the Best Kiss glory away from repeat winners Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson? Was Jon Hamm a bigger dirtbag than Jennifer Aniston?

You have to rise up, sit down and make your voice heard for the 2012 MTV Movie Awards, and this isn’t just us telling you. A new promo for the awards features the likes of Captain America himself, Chris Evans, and someone you may know as Effie Trinket, Elizabeth Banks, and they have the very same message for you.

A number of stars have assembled to spread the message of this year’s MTV Movie Awards. Not only are Evans and Banks on hand, but Chloë Moretz, Kristen Bell, Liam Hemsworth and Anna Kendrick want you to get up as well.

But obviously, every movement must have a fearless leader, and this year, host Russell Brand is just the man for the job. After two stints as host of the Video Music Awards, Brand will lead the charge and encourage everyone to rise up and sit down for the 21st annual MTV Movie Awards.

The MTV Movie Awards is your awards show, and it’s up to you to make sure the winners reflect that. The awesomeness begins on Sunday, June 3, at 9 p.m. ET and will air live on MTV. Voting will be open in all 12 categories until Saturday, June 2, the night before the show.

“I’ve signed on to being exhausted for the next 25 years,” the 38-year-old actress says, kicking off her studded stilettos and settling into a sofa at the Four Seasons Hotel.

That’s the price of being a working mom with a successful career that includes starring in three films this year, a recurring role on “30 Rock,” a burgeoning production company and various other projects in different stages of development and production.

“I do like to work,” she said. “I’m very much a sleep-when-you’re-dead person.”

Banks has a very personal connection to “What to Expect When You’re Expecting.” She read the pregnancy manual while preparing to start her own family and said it kept her sane during the scary transition into first-time parenthood.

She and her husband, producer Max Handelman, welcomed son Felix last year, opting to use a gestational surrogate after facing infertility. Banks connected to the film adaptation of “What to Expect” because it’s less about pregnancy and more about parenting.

“When I was going through my battle with infertility, I got wonderful advice, which was: Why are you so worried about the pregnancy? Just get the baby whatever way you can get your baby,” she said. “Pregnant women would say, ‘Yeah, pregnancy is really great and lovely, but then you go to the hospital and they give you your baby and you have to mother it.’ That’s the part that’s important, mothering the baby, and at the end of the day, that’s what this movie is about.”

Banks plays Wendy Cooper, a perky lactation expert and pregnancy authority whose own expectant experience isn’t the glowy, blissful one she’d hoped for.

“All the not-so-wonderful things about pregnancy that are possible — like flatulence, acne, constipation, swollen ankles, fatigue and anxiety — happen to Wendy,” said director Kirk Jones. “Elizabeth Banks is just a genius comedian and she played everything so beautifully.”

Though Banks wore a fake tummy in the film, “a prosthetic belly is not the same as being pregnant.”

“It’s an approximation of the physicality you have as a pregnant person,” she said. “It makes you walk differently and sit differently, eat differently, and it provides a wonderful shelf for your coffee mug. And it’s heavy, so your back aches, so it’s a wonderful approximation.”

Though the part didn’t really make her feel pregnant, Banks admits she was “definitely moved at the end (of the film) when they all got a baby.”

The actress will be back on screen next month in “People Like Us,” which she describes as “a beautiful, wonderful story about people who find family.” Next up is “Pitch Perfect,” which she produced with her husband: A comedy set in the competitive world of collegiate acapella. Banks said it’s the hardest she has ever worked.

“It’s like birthing a baby almost!” she said. “Until it’s out to the world, there’s no end to worrying about it.”

The film is due in the fall, right when she returns to the world of “The Hunger Games” to film its second installment, “Catching Fire.”

Her turn as the super-coiffed Effie Trinket has won Banks younger fans and reinvigorated her passion for acting.

“I just love Effie so much,” the actress said. “She’s a really amazing character, a complicated, interesting, wild character to play — the type of character that when you’re a young actor you dream of getting to play, and I get to do it now.”

Even if it is all a little exhausting.

washingtonpost.com

“I didn’t carry my own baby,” Banks told Celebuzz about becoming a mom via surrogate, last year.

“I made a baby cake and I baked it in an angel’s oven. That’s one of the few pregnancy experiences that his movie does not explore. It explores lots of other ones but not gestational surrogacy, which is how I had my son, Felix.”

Even though she wasn’t pregnant herself, Banks remembered having hormonal episodes leading up to the birth of her child.

“The Thursday before my son was born, I was just driving to coffee with my husband and I literally burst into tears,” she recalled.

“I was horrified that this was the last Thursday of my life before I was going to be responsible for another human being for the rest of my life! ”

Although she’s never been pregnant, Banks got a taste of the experience while working on the movie.

She and cast mates Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Lopez were given prosthetic breasts and tummies to wear under their clothing.

“Mine had giant areolas like horrifyingly large salami slices,” laughed Banks. “I thought, ‘That’s the size of my face!’”

celebuzz.com

We had the opportunity to speak with two of the film’s stars, Elizabeth Banks and Ben Falone recently about the research that Banks did into the world of Mommy bloggers in preparation for her role and how they themselves referenced the original book as parents.

Take a look at our video interview below:

amctheaters.com

I can exclusively reveal that The Hunger Games star is receiving the Navigator Award at this year’s Maui Film Festival…

“Elizabeth Banks embodies the talent, intelligence and charisma that are the touchstones of what the Maui Film Festival looks for in the film artists we honor,” fest director Barry Rivers said.

The award ceremony will include a Q&A and a screening of her DreamWorks Pictures’ flick People Like Us at the Wailea Gold & Emerald Golf Course.

Dreamworks Pictures’ People Like Us will have its World Premiere amongst the Summer Showcase screenings. The film is directed by Alex Kurtzman, written by Kurtzman and Roberto Orci and Jody Lambert, and stars Chris Pine, Elizabeth Banks, Olivia Wilde, Michael Hall D’Addario, Philip Baker Hall, Mark Duplass and Michelle Pfeiffer. In a story inspired by true events, Sam (Pine), a twenty-something, fast-talking salesman, is tasked with fulfilling his estranged father’s last wishes – delivering an inheritance to a sister he never knew he had. Dreamworks Pictures will release the film on June 29, 2012.

The all-day event featured dozens of special guests from the worlds of blogging, fashion, retail and beauty to discuss the future of fashion and style on the web. Attendees networked and foraged in fabulous suites by Michael Stars, House of Zappos, JellyPop, Miss Me, Le SportSac, Samsung and P&G products, including Covergirl, Olay and Venus.

Naturally, Banks looked appropriately chic for her appearance in a dark, shiny frock by British designer Matthew Williamson, and a pair of highly-coveted black shiny heels by Jean-Charles du Castelbajac, which she described as “a hot Mary Jane.”

The disarmingly frank and funny actress — think Chelsea Handler without the profanity and the vodka – talked with Lucky Editor-in-Chief Brandon Holley, wearing a FABB-ulous outfit by Kelly Wearstler — before a room packed with young, enthusiastic female bloggers. The main topic at hand: her own blog, ElizabethBanks.com.

Banks explained why she got into blogging, what her criterion is for blog items, and how she’s big into aggregating and would love to showcase other bloggers’ work. She’s mostly interested in bloggers with a point of view, a voice, curiosity, a sense of humor and “a little bit of girl power.” No negativity, please. Life’s too short.

Her blog has fun categories like Work Stuff, Geeky Stuff, Yummy Stuff, Pretty Stuff, Silly Stuff, Good Stuff. She even has a Book Club and is currently reading The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty.

To our knowledge, Banks is definitely the first actress in the history of the Hollywood who posts photos of herself on red carpets and actually asks you to critique her looks. “Be honest. I can take it,” she tells her viewers.

Ok, so many readers did not care for those floral golf pants she wore on The Ellen DeGeneres talk show. But eveyone love-loved her bright yellow Bill Blass gown and Judith Leiber bag at the London Games premiere.

Her hair and makeup artist, Karen Adler, also writes on Banks’ blog about creating her looks for special events, even detailing the products she uses on the actress; such as Kevin Murphy’s Fresh Hair, Powder Puff, Ardell individual lashes, Bare Minerals blush and Buxom gloss in a shade called “leslie.”

Predictably, the topic turned to Hunger Games when one blogger asked Banks what she’d steal from Effie Trinket’s eccentric wardrobe.The actress ‘fessed up that she has her eye on a pair of Effie’s flashy footwear. “Effie had some amazing gold Alexander McQueen booties that I am deservately trying to get. They’re probably going to be worth money some day and that’s why they don’t want to give them to me. I’ll wear them. They probably just preserve them!”

As for the new director of the sequel Catching Fire, Frances Lawrence, Banks observed: “I’ve never met Francis but he seems lovely. I like his movies and I’m excited for a new voice to be involved. It’s gonna be great for the franchise and that’s really all I know.”

Watch video of Banks’ FABB appearance below.

hollywoodreporter.com

Voting takes place at http://www.mtv.com/ontv/movieawards/2012/

MOVIE OF THE YEAR
Bridesmaids
The Hunger Games
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
The Help
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1

BEST FEMALE PERFORMANCE
Emma Stone – Crazy, Stupid, Love.
Emma Watson – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Jennifer Lawrence – The Hunger Games
Kristen Wiig – Bridesmaids
Rooney Mara – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

BEST MALE PERFORMANCE
Channing Tatum – The Vow
Daniel Radcliffe – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Joseph Gordon-Levitt – 50/50
Josh Hutcherson – The Hunger Games
Ryan Gosling – Drive

BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE
Elle Fanning – Super 8
Melissa McCarthy – Bridesmaids
Liam Hemsworth – The Hunger Games
Rooney Mara – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Shailene Woodley – The Descendants

BEST CAST
21 Jump Street (Sony Pictures) – Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Ice Cube, Dave Franco, Ellie Kemper, Brie Larson
Bridesmaids (Universal Pictures) – Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne, Melissa McCarthy, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Ellie Kemper
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (Warner Bros. Pictures) – Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Tom Felton
The Help (DreamWorks) – Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jessica Chastain
The Hunger Games (Lionsgate) – Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Elizabeth Banks, Woody Harrelson, Lenny Kravitz

BEST ON-SCREEN TRANSFORMATION
Colin Farrell – Horrible Bosses
Elizabeth Banks – The Hunger Games
Johnny Depp – 21 Jump Street
Michelle Williams – My Week with Marilyn
Rooney Mara – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

BEST FIGHT
Channing Tatum & Jonah Hill vs. Kid Gang – 21 Jump Street
Daniel Radcliffe vs. Ralph Fiennes – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Jennifer Lawrence & Josh Hutcherson vs. Alexander Ludwig – The Hunger Games
Tom Cruise vs. Michael Nyqvist – Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
Tom Hardy vs. Joel Edgerton – Warrior

BEST KISS
Channing Tatum & Rachel McAdams – The Vow
Jennifer Lawrence & Josh Hutcherson – The Hunger Games
Robert Pattinson & Kristen Stewart – The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn
Rupert Grint & Emma Watson – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Ryan Gosling & Emma Stone – Crazy, Stupid, Love.

“[My character's] entire background makes her a baby expert and she has every expectation that [her] pregnancy will be wonderful — and is sort of taken aback when everything goes as wrong as they could,” says Elizabeth. “The irony of her life is that she gets the pregnancy from hell.”

Inspired by the well-known New York Times bestselling pregnancy manual, What to Expect When You’re Expecting chronicles the hilarious and heartwarming stories of five couples who face the many challenges adjusting to pregnancy and parenthood.

“I think that this is a very fun and entertaining film that has wonderful actors playing really well-developed, fun characters,” says Cameron. “But it is really truthful to the experience of starting a family.”

Chace Crawford, Anna Kendrick, Matthew Morrison, Dennis Quaid, Rodrigo Santoro, Ben Falcone and Joe Manganiello round out the cast. What to Expect When You’re Expecting opens in theaters everywhere on May 18, 2012 — just in time for Mother’s Day.

etonline.com