You might be surprised to learn that one of the best celebrity interviewers out there right now is actually an eight-year-old girl. She's interviewed stars like Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Bell, and Tina Fey -- and all while she's still in elementary school! Lindalee Rose, interviewer extraordinaire, has been conducting celebrity interviews since February of 2013 -- that's right, when she was just five! -- and she hasn't looked back since.
It all started with her love of the British sci-fi series, Doctor Who, which she became obsessed with at the ripe old age of two. It's amazing that someone so young was able to engage in such a cerebral show, but, then again, Lindalee is not your average kid. And her passion for the show just continued to grow over time.
Lindalee's father, Steve Czarnecki, told me about the first episode of Doctor Who that they watched together. "My wife Rebekah came into the room and asked Lindalee what she thought of the episode? Lindalee lit up and began to recap the episode from start to finish with such animation and accuracy. My wife turned to me and said 'You should record this,' so I sat our then two-year-old daughter down and had her once again give her recap and review to the camera; she delivered it with as much, if not more, excitement. Then I edited it and posted it on the Internet. By the end of the week, it had spread around and eventually Steven Moffat, the show's Executive Producer and head writer, had tweeted it out to his 400K followers. Suddenly Lindalee was all over the net. Her first episode gained a lot of views and we thought, 'Well, let's try a recap for next week'...and it just sort of snowballed from there."
Pretty soon little Lindalee was interviewing the actual actors from her favorite show, including one of the doctors himself, Matt Smith. But her very first interview was with actress Freema Agyeman, who played Martha Jones, one of the Doctor's companions. Lindalee asked her the one question every fan has always wondered, "Is there a bathroom in the TARDIS?" Fans of the show are very aware that the well-known TARDIS is the Doctor's time machine/spaceship. With this question, the young interviewer got laughs all around the room. When I got the chance to ask Lindalee about what she loves about Doctor Who, she said, "I love the characters, the crazy adventures, the explosions, the aliens, and the TARDIS...the real one, not the one in my garage."
After the initial Internet sensation, Lindalee's father started posting her interviews on his website, Beyond the Marquee, to great success. It didn't take the young interviewer long to advance to the status of "red carpet fixture," where she has interviewed big-name celebrities the likes of Nicole Kidman, Josh Gad, Justin Long, and Sir John Hurt. Her sincerity and passion mixed with her young age causes stars to instantly warm up to her and to show a different side of themselves than what typical reporters usually see. She also asks great questions and is not afraid to engage even the biggest names out there. When I asked Lindalee who her favorite celebrity interviews have been so far, she said, "All the cast from Doctor Who: Fifth Harmony, Laura Marano, Lily James, Matt Smith, Cristina Vee, Josh Gad, Anna Camp, and Melissa McCarthy, because we now made a secret handshake."
She recently interviewed the king of parody songs, Weird Al Yankovic -- the Elvis of the geek world with hit comedy spoof songs that include the classics "Eat It" and "Fat." Lindalee Rose was far from being born when I was listening to Weird Al's classic albums like In 3-D, Polka Party, and Even Worse on my cassette Walkman. Not only did she do a delightful interview with Al, but she was also brave enough to ask him to sing her parody version of one of his classic songs, "Yoda," which is a parody of the iconic Kinks song, Lola. You got it, a parody of a parody! Lindalee's song is titled "Milo," which is appropriate considering Weird Al was there to promote the new Disney XD show -- Milo Murphy's Law -- that he's starring in as a voice actor. The series revolves around the title character, Milo Murphy, who is the descendant of Edward A. Murphy Jr., the namesake for Murphy's Law, the philosophy which states that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. When I asked Lindalee what it was like to sing her song with the legend, she said, "It was awesome! I love Weird Al; he is sooooooo funny! And it was so much fun to sing together." You can watch the video of her interview with Weird Al below.
I'm personally looking forward to seeing more celebrity interviews from Lindalee Rose. Considering where she is at just eight years old today--and how far she has already advanced in her budding career--the sky is the limit for her future. I think too often we see the same cliché celebrity interviews from entertainment host carbon copies that are very plastic, or we see the snarky "too cool for everything" reporters conducting the interviews. And the same-old, same-old makes for very boring interviews indeed. It's great to see someone so young with genuine enthusiasm for the arts, and because of this, the interviews she conducts are genuine and interesting. I'm sure when Lindalee's favorite show, Doctor Who, returns to the air, she will have plenty more interviews in store for us. I want to thank my fellow geek and writer, Heather Leah Huddleston for her help with this piece. You can also see all of young Lindalee's fantastic celebrity interviews on both her YouTube channel and on her father's website, Beyond the Marquee. I highly recommend checking all of them out, like the video below of Lindalee's interview with the cast of the new Ghostbusters.