I assume it must be quite a surreal experience to be Kristian Schmidt, who is more widely known as ‘Krit’. He comes from a humble Samoan family in Porirua within the Wellington region of New Zealand’s North Island. Through his hard work, Krit has had a string of successes. He’s toured the world as a hip-hop dancer, and is strikingly intelligent with a Master’s degree in Education and a conjoint degree in Law and Arts. He’s also the recipient of the prestigious Fulbright scholarship in the US, and Krit has also lectured at the University of Auckland for a short time.
So how did an Academic from Porirua end up rubbing shoulders with some of the biggest names in entertainment history, thanks to being a VJ on MTV NZ and AU? That’s what I’m going to find out as we talk about his upbringing, his career, his very famous cousin and also his charming geeky side.
What was it like growing up in Porirua?
Krit: Porirua is a wicked city. It’s always growing, that’s what I love about it, and it’s the second-largest Pacific city after Auckland, in terms of the make-up of its population. It’s got the second-largest Samoan community, the largest Tokelau community, there’s a lot of immigrants from the islands who have moved there, so I loved having that around me when growing up. That diversity in the formative years of my life shaped who I am today and just enriched my life. My family still lives there, everybody knows everybody. For instance, the last time I went there, all I had to do was speak to the lady who runs the local dairy and she can still rattle off ‘who’s sleeping with who’ now!
REALLY? That’s hilaaaarious!
Krit: Yeah, when I need to catch up on what’s going on I just go to the dairy!
When you were growing up, what kind of music did you listen to?
Krit: A lot of my musical tastes come from my sister who is 10 years older than me, and honestly all she spent her money on was records. She’d just buy a lot vinyl, a lot cassette tapes, and then I’d end up listening to them! So my favourite artists today are TLC, Prince, Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, and these are all the artists that came through in the 80s and 90s you know like Madonna, A Tribe Called Quest. So when people are like ‘why are you stuck listening to these artists?’ it’s cause I was pretty much just listening to what my sister wanted to hear.
What was the first cassette you can remember listening to?
Krit: The first cassette I owned was TLC’s CrazySexyCool and that’s also my favourite album of all time. CrazySexyCool is just a flippin’ masterpiece and it is still today the highest selling hip-hop / r&b album of all time. I think they actually still hold that Guinness Book World Record.
I did not know that!
Krit: What I love about them is that their image is as big as their sound. Each of them are so different looking, they’re all really stunning and they made good music and have good messages behind their music. Their personalities are what really shone on for me. It usually makes a lot of difference with who I listen to: how they’re being interviewed, how they interact with their fans, that’s what I really like about them.
Speaking of what you really like about them, I heard you snuck backstage at a TLC concert and you caught the eye of one of them. Tell me about that!
Krit: As you know, I was a huge fan of them growing up since I was young. And then of course [TLC member] Lisa [“Left Eye” Lopez] passed away in 2002 and then I was like ‘oh man, I’m never gonna get to see them now’. There was no way they’re gonna come to New Zealand because [TLC member] Tionne [“T-Boz” Watkins] has all these health issues so she’s never been good with touring to begin with. And then in 2008 they had that one-off concert in Tokyo and I was like ‘you know what? I just won ten thousand dollars on ‘Wheel of Fortune’ as a contestant on there, so I jumped on a plane, flew to Japan and I just stood out like a sore thumb. I’m tall, it was so easy to spot me [in the crowd’] amongst all these Japanese people. So we made eye contact and at the end of the concert I hustled my way backstage.
Just casually won $10,000 on ‘Wheel of Fortune’ – no big deal! Haha. How did you hustle backstage?
Krit: I was just waiting around afterwards and people were clearing out. If you’ve ever been to a concert in Japan, as soon as a concert finishes everyone leaves. I’m not even kidding, within five minutes the whole stadium could be cleared out. Everyone moves like clockwork, it’s crazy. So I just hung around and started talking to the guy on the keyboard and was like ‘hey, um, I flew all the way from New Zealand, I’m a huge fan, this probably the only time I’ll get to meet them’ and he was like ‘okay, let me talk to the girls’. Then Tionne came out and was like ‘hey, I remember you!’ and from there I stayed in touch with them. When I moved to the States, I stayed in touch with them there and when on a couple of dates with [Rozonda] “Chilli” [Thomas]. It was crazy how things came so full circle, I never dreamed I would meet them, let alone go on a date with Chilli, so that was cool.
TLC (picture left to right): T-Boz, Chilli and Left Eye.
Holy shit! You dated a member of TLC?!
Krit: Yeah! Now Chilli and I are cool, back then I was just fanning out. But yeah, I love them as ladies, they’re awesome.
Amazing. What are some of the other incredible experiences you’ve had? Working with MTV now, you must have had plenty?
Krit: Yeah, my first interview was with my cousin Dwayne Johnson. That was a real special moment for our families because there’s no one who has really connected on this level and cross paths like that before.
Wow, you’re cousins with Dwayne Johnson, also known as “The Rock”?
Photo credit: Poppy Reid
Krit: Yeah, our mothers are cousins. My parents are Samoan, his mother is Samoan and his Dad is African-American.
Had you met him before the interview?
Krit: Yeah, I grew up in New Zealand and Dwayne grew up in the States and it wasn’t until I moved to the States to study that my Mum called up his Mum and said ‘hey, can you please watch out for him? because I’m all the way back in New Zealand’. So my auntie really took me under her wing and that’s when I really got to know Dwayne and develop a relationship with him and his Mum. So for three years they took really good care of me, attended when I had prize giving and stuff and be really supportive when my Mum couldn’t fly up. It was when I was going on to movie sets with Dwayne that I really got inspired to pursue a career in entertainment.
So what convinced you to sign up for MTV NZ’s search for a VJ competition?
Krit standing with MTV AU VJ Kate Peck.
Krit: To be honest, I didn’t think I had a shot at it. Friends told me I should go for it. I’d signed up for things in the past and they hadn’t worked out. When I think of MTV or any other station you don’t really see a ‘pacific face’, so I was like ‘they’re not ready for it’. Sometimes you just need a push, a reminder from someone else to encourage you. So my friend gave me the encouragement I needed and I went for it.
Do you have any ‘pinch yourself’ moments when you wonder whether what you’re experiencing is all a dream or not?
Krit: You know what, I actually have them all the time, eh. It’s crazy. I’m quite a religious person but you know, I’m quite liberal in my beliefs. When I’ve got time to myself I like to reflect on how things are going and I just think to myself ‘Flip! I’m really blessed to be out here and having these opportunities’.
Opportunities like MTV’s Video Music Awards?
On the red carpet at the MTV Music Video Awards in Los Angeles.
Krit: The VMAs were awesome. I went over to LA and got all the buzz leading up to the event. It was just crazy, there were parties every night, all these different performances. I got to see Sam Smith [and a friend who sung with Sam Smith], Iggy Azalea, Rita Ora, Jessie J and this was before the VMAs had even begun! And on the night there were people like Nicki Minaj. I saw the top echelon of performers in front of me: downstage, backstage and walking through the dressing rooms – stuff like that, it was just amazing. And actually, when Beyoncé performed I have a friend I used to dance with back in the day [who was performing on stage with Beyoncé] as well and that was her very last show before she flew back to New Zealand. It was awesome just seeing how all these different people from my past had gone on such different journeys and come back together. So that was special for me as well, seeing an old friend off stage. We were both there at different capacities but we both kind of share that [moment as] history.
What would be your advice for someone who wants to get into television presenting and VJing?
MTV co-hosts Krit Schmidt and Kate Peck hosting an event.
Krit: I would say it’s a craft that I’m still learning about. I would get as much training from professionals who know what they’re doing and have years of experience. Because you can never stop learning, you’ve always got more to improve on yourself. So yeah, get more training, get more experience so when you do go into auditions you’ve got that confidence built up. That would be my advice.
As you know, on this website we love our geeky things. So if you could choose a superpower, what would it be?
Krit: Oooh! Any superpower? I would do teleportation like Nightcrawler. I always think this all the time. Because I travel a lot, I’ve got such long legs and I hate sitting in seats and I hate waiting and even when I’m lying down I wanna stretch my legs. Man, how awesome would it be to just teleport yourself to the other side of the world? I’d LOVE to have that power! Nightcrawler is one of my favourite X-Men ever. So yeah, teleportation or time travel. I watch faaaar too many shows about time travel, that’s my other big thing as well.
Nightcrawler teleporting in front of Spider-Man.
What do you like about time travel?
Krit: I just think it’s so interesting thinking about how you can go back in time and change one thing and see how it flows on and affects everything else that comes after, the chain reaction it sets off. I love Back To The Future, that’s my reference for time travel. And I’m a huge Doctor Who fan.
Wow, I never picked you for a Doctor Who fan!
Krit: Yeah man, that’s my jam! I love Doctor Who, I just love his story and the T.A.R.D.I.S. That would be my mode of transport, I need me a T.A.R.D.I.S.
What other geeky things do you like, do you like comic book movies?
Krit: Yeah! Well, while my sister has been a big part of my music influences, my brother and I bond through movies and what we watch. That’s been a huge influence into what my tastes are, what I watch. My older brother is a geek, he’s a huuuge comic book fan and used to collect a lot of comics. There’s an old comic called WildC.A.T.S., [he also read] Gen13, X-Men. He used to have those at the house all the time and he’d keep them in pristine condition and every now and then he might let me read one.
Gen13
Krit: (continued) He used to take me to Armageddeon Expo before it blew up into this huge mainstream thing. In Wellington it used to be in like a conference room in Victoria University, that was the size of it back then. Now it’s a huge-ass thing that takes over the whole of Greenlane Park. So yeah, things like that. Buffy The Vampire Slayer, me and my brother used to watch that. I also like Battlestar Galactica and Star Wars: the original trilogy.
Those are some very impressive geek titles you spouted there! Who are your top 5 superheroes?
One of the many X-Men team variations (from left to right): Bishop, Phoenix, Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm, Gambit
Krit: They’re all pretty much X-Men, to be honest. I’d go with Nightcrawler, I really like Storm, Bishop, Gambit and Magneto. I really like villains, a lot of the time I always cheer on the villains. I don’t blame Magneto for the way he was, I think he’s cool.
Who’s one of your favourite villains?
Krit: There’s is going to sound stupid but I really like Starscream from Transformers. He was such a snake! He would do whatever it took to take the leadership of the Decepticons from Megatron. And he’s the only Transformer to die and then come back in ghost form. Shit like that is hilarious.
Thank you very much for the interview, it’s been great hearing about all your successes and geeking out with you, we should do it again sometime!
Krit: Thank you, I had a good time, all the best with the new website!
You can catch Krit engrossed somewhere watching the next episode of Doctor Who and you can also see him hosting the MTV Waitangi Day 100 Feb 6th from 10am on MTV Hits.
