LIVE WITH KELLY
By Danielle Azzolina
Recently, I had the opportunity to visit the hugely popular TV show “Live with Regis and Kelly” at the ABC studios in New York City. Live, means it was being seen on TV as the show happens, not taped and edited and shown later. You get to feel the energy and the lights and the action as the show comes alive before your eyes.
I got to go backstage and Kelly was waiting for me! She knew I was writing an article about her and said, “So, here is the kid reporter who is going to write the article about me!
Kelly is warm and friendly and talked to me about her son. I told her I liked to make videos, and she spoke about her 11-year-old son and said he was already creating his own videos on the Internet. She looked proud and her face lit up when she spoke about him. Kelly made me feel comfortable when she spoke about her son. Making people feel comfortable is part of her job. I want to share with Kids News Inc. readers what I learned about Kelly in my interview with her.
HERE’S PIE IN YOUR FACE!
I was curious if there were shows that she thought were particularly unusual or extra fun to do and she told me about one.
I said that sounded like so much fun and Kelly said, “Yeah it was, we were doing it with the drivers of NASCAR because the year before we had challenged them to a pie in the face contest. That was FUN because someone had to throw the pies and somone had to catch them with THEIR FACE. To me the much more challenging task was the ice-cream cones!”
PICK AN INTERVIEW, ANY INTERVIEW
I wondered who Kelly would love to interview from the present or the past and she said, “From the present I’d have to say President Obama. I think that would be a very exciting interview and I’d love to know how he’s going to handle getting us out of our economic crisis.
From the past I think it would be probably George Washington because what was it like to have been the first President! I mean this man started the whole ball rolling right. My son learned all about government in school this year and we spent a lot of time learning about the presidents and we both came to the conclusion that it must have been pretty cool to have been the first President of the United States!”
Can you imagine what an interview with the first United States President and the current one would be like. What would each of their thoughts be about the world today I wonder? Cool thought!
PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT
Even though she didn’t know at the time Kelly’s play with best bud and neighbor, Scotty, was good practice for her future career! I asked kelly what she was like as a kid. Did she always love to preform? She replied, “If you’d ask my Mom she would tell you that I was always like this as a kid. That I was always putting on a show and I do remember my best friend Scotty and I would put on shows. There was this show that was very popular when I was your age called the Donnie and Marie Show. They were a brother and sister team and they would sing and dance and we would pretend we were Donnie and Marie. So I guess I was always performing but at the time it wasn’t a career goal , it was just playing and it was just for fun.”
PREPARING FOR THE SHOW
They also pre-interview guests and find the best questions to ask them and those are the ones we ask.”
FREE TIME?
What does Kelly like to do on her free time I asked and without hesitation she said,
“I like to hang out with my kids! I don’t have a lot of free time because as you know kids have a lot of activities. Michael likes to play tennis and Lola likes to go ice-skating and Joaquin plays soccer. We have a lot of stuff that we’re always doing together so I don’t have a lot of free time.
What I do like to do when I have the time is to go jogging and I also like to drink tea and watch American Idol.”
REGIS
I asked Kelly what it was like to work with Regis and if there were anything about him that people would be surprised to learn?
“Regis is really seven feet tall. No, I’m just kidding. I love working with Regis he makes me laugh every day!
“He’s kind of like, is there a kid in your class that’s funnier then the other kids?” Kelly asked me.
“Yeah, his name is Tommy. He’s really, really funny and he makes the day fun.” I said. “Well, Regis is like Tommy. He makes all of us laugh!
We’re all really excited to see him and he tells really funny stories and he can sometimes tease people when they’re not really paying attention and so Regis is Tommy.” Kelly revealed.
IPOD INFO
What kind of music does Kelly like?
“If you saw my ipod you wouldn’t believe my ipod! I have Demi Lovato, The Eagles, I have rap and classical music, I have country music and Beethoven too. I have everything! I like every kind of music. I think every type of music suits a different purpose. When I want to calm down and relax I put on Sade. If I’m studying and I have to really be focused I put on classical music and if I just want to dance with my daughter I put on the Jonas Brothers.”
NOT AS PLANNED!
Ever wonder if anything scary every happened while Kelly was on location or filming a show? I was curious so I asked Kelly and she laughed and said, “Oh yeah! Last year we went to the Bahamas to film a show and I got really sick. I mean really, really sick with a stomach bug or something. I was so lucky because my parents were there and I don’t care how old you get you always want your parents to take care of you when you’re not feeling well and so my parents were on location and they were able to take care of me so that was a good thing.” Kelly said.
THE SHOWBIZ BUG?
I know that Kelly has three children and I wondered if any ot them might like to go into show business.
Kelly said, “I’m not sure, they certainly like coming to visit me at work they think it’s funny. I don’t think they actually understand how much hard work it is and that it’s filled with an awful lot of rejection. Sometimes you can really get your hopes up and then you get hurt feelings if you don’t get a job that you were really hoping to get.
Michael got to do some voice over work in a movie called, Fly Me to The Moon. I played a fly and he played a fly. He liked that because he made a lot more money doing this voice over then he earns from doing his cores, and he thought it was a lot less work and a lot more money to do that and he was able to get a few video games so he was very excited.” Kelly said.
I asked which fly Michael played and Kelly said, “He was the little fly at the cocktail party who asked people if they would like any snacks. You know what was so funny, when they shoot these animated movies they record your voice years before the movie then they do all the animation for it. So when we went to see the movie I almost didn’t know Michael’s own voice because he recorded it four years ago and his voice is so much deeper now. His voice when he was six years old was a lot different then it is now that he’s eleven. The only reason I knew it was his voice is because it sounds like his younger brother’s voice sounds now. It sounded like Joaquin’s voice does now.”
GOOD ADVICE
The fact that Kelly has one of the most desirable jobs in show business I wanted to know if she had any advice for someone like me who may want to go into journalism or show business as a career.
Kelly shared this with me, “Believe me I think that you’re way far ahead of most kids your age and probably most adults too in journalism.” She laughed. ” I think all you have to do is work hard, get up early, do your research do your homework and just always remain optimistic. Try not to let the little things in the business get you down because it is a hard business to go into. I’m not a news journalist but certainly the entertainment industry and hosting a talk show can be very difficult.
It’s not all fun and games. I’m lucky because I have a really fun job but there are a lot of jobs like mine that aren’t fun. You just have to work, work hard.
My father use to say to me, I don’t know if this expression is still used, but he would say “Keep your nose to the grind stone.” and that just means work as hard as you can all the time.”
THE BEST PART
I wanted to know what Kelly thought was the most fun about her jpb and what was the hardest part? She said, “What I love the most about my job, there are a couple of things. First, I get to have my hair and make-up done everyday and they make me look nice and I get to borrow my clothes! Which is great I get to wear really nice things and I don’t have to buy them but the bummer is you always have to give them back. I think the hardest part of my job is that sometimes you worry at the end of the day that maybe you didn’t do a good enough job or maybe you said something that made you look not to bright and that’s part of human nature I think, to always want to do a better job.” Kelly revealed. I said to Kelly that I say to myself, I try my best and what ever happens, happens. Kelly told me that was a really great place to keep my mind and to remember that.
Kelly does make it seem like doing her job is easy even though it’s not. She has so much energy and is funny and quick and interesting too. I was surprised that she wonders if she did a good enough job at the end of the day but I think caring that much is why she is so great and fun to watch EVERY day of the show!!!!!
Thank you Kelly for allowing me to interview you and also for being so nice it was a pleasure!