23
19 MARCH 2015
Kristien Morato, Flemish Reporter in Hollywood
J
ournalist Kristien Morato (née Gijbels, 26) grew up in the small town of Hamont, in Limburg, but followed her heart and moved to California. She is the youngest and first ever Belgian member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA).
moved as soon as I graduated. We got married on the beach on Coronado Island in San Diego, in front of our family and best friends. It was a small and romantic ceremony with some twenty people, but it was perfect. My mom and my two best friends flew over from Belgium.”
First things first, Kristien: the love story! We would love to hear more about the love of your life and how you met him. “I met my husband Jack in 2008. He is a police officer in the US Air Force and was stationed in Kleine Brogel. I was still in college at the time. My friends and I came back from a night out when we ran into Jack and his friends in the city center of Hasselt. We ended up chatting for almost an hour. It just happened, almost like it was meant to be. We exchanged numbers and started texting each other. We started dating a couple of months later. We have been together for seven years and married for almost five. We got engaged in 2009. I applied for a K1 visa (a fiancée visa) and
How did you end up becoming a Hollywood reporter? “My parents pushed me to go to SintHubertus College, a very strict school in Neerpelt, something I am still grateful for. When I was in my last year of Journalism at XIOS Hogeschool in Hasselt, my dad suddenly passed away. I was in bed for two weeks, didn’t want to go back to school until I realized that my dad would have loved to see me graduate. So I went back to school, in San Diego, where Jack was living at the time. That’s where I finished my last year. For my internship at Vitaya Magazine in Antwerp, I went back to Belgium. Once I moved back to the US, I started working for Het Laatste Nieuws and hln.
be. Hollywood is so much fun, and I really can’t imagine myself sitting behind a desk at the newspaper every day… I need to go out and do things.” And now you are the first Belgian and youngest HFPA member ever. Tell us more! “Last year I received a phone call from one of the HFPA members who told me he wanted me to become a member too because he thought I was a good journalist. To apply for membership, you need two sponsors who are members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and you need to prove that you are an entertainment reporter by showing at least four press clippings from the past year. In addition, you have to live in Southern California and be a member of MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) for at least two years. My sponsors, from France and Germany, really campaigned for me. I ended up getting the most votes ever and I joined the association back in May. It’s been an amazing journey, and
Gazette van Detroit
NAME_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
•
Easy Access anywhere around the world with an internet connection
•
Simple to Use with fullscreen mode, single-click zoom and simple navigation
•
Search Quickly to find articles by keyword or phrase in the current issue or archived issues
•
Share Information by email to friends and family, or post to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter
•
Read Archived Issues with our calendar archive or search feature
STATE/PROVINCE____________________________________________DAYTIME PHONE ______________________________ COUNTRY_____________________________________________________EVENING PHONE______________________________ EMAIL___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Visit gazettevandetroit.com and click on the subscription tab or I am enclosing my $25 check or money order made out to Belgian Publishing, Inc.
KRISTEN MORATO continued on page 24
online benefits...
ADDRESS_________________________________________________________________________________________________________ CITY___________________________________________________________ ZIP/POSTAL CODE ___________________________
This year you attended the Academy Awards for the fourth time in a row, but the 2015 edition was extra special because of your exclusive dress. How did all that happen? “Belgian fashion designer Nicky Vankets had offered to design my Oscar dress. Since I love his work so much, I gave him ‘carte blanche’. I still can’t get my head around the fact that he made the perfect dress without even meeting me in person once. I went to a local tailor to get sized, sent all the info to Nicky and two weeks after he finished it, my dress arrived in California. The dress was a big hit on the red carpet, people came up to me to ask me who designed it. I will never forget this wonderful experience, especially because I got to keep the dress!”
SUBSCRIPTION ORDER FORM
subscribe today… Please send me one year (12 online issues) of the Gazette van Detroit: This is a new subscription ____ / renewal ____ (please check one)
I’m thankful to be a part of it. We get to interview so many people (around 300 interviews a year) and we get to travel the world. This year was my first year attending the Golden Globes, and it was magical. My husband and I got to walk the red carpet, a great experience. Literally everybody in Hollywood was there.”
Mail this form USA or Canada: Belgian Publishing, Inc. • 18740 E. 13 Mile Rd. • Roseville MI 48066-1378, USA with your payment to: Belgium: Gazette van Detroit Afdeling Vlaanderen p/a Melkerijstraat 1A • B-8600 Leke-Diksmuide
24
You travel a lot, what is your favorite place, besides California of course? “I go to New York a lot, because most of the interviews are either in Los Angeles or New York. It is one of my favorite cities in the country because I have been there many times and I know my
PHOTO COURTESY OF K. MORATO
I can imagine you meet lots of interesting people. What are the three encounters you will remember for the rest of your life? “Well, there is definitely Mick Jagger, because… he is Mick Jagger. He talks a lot but at the same time, he doesn’t say anything at all. His wife had died a couple of months before the interview, and it was the first time he was doing interviews after she passed away. I saw him again the same night at a party, where he was dancing with a very young woman. He is a very interesting figure to say the least… And then there is Brad Pitt. The interview took place at Tribeca Grill, a restaurant owned by Robert De Niro. We met upstairs and we had to take the employee elevator. Everything was kept a secret, but people still found out. He was late and fans and photographers were waiting outside just to catch a glimpse of him. He was very open and talked about his wedding, his children and of course Angelina. I will always remember my interview with her too, because I made her cry. I interviewed her for Unbroken, a movie about the life of Olympic hero and WWII veteran Louis Zamperini that she directed. Zamperini, a good friend of Jolie, passed away while they were still editing the movie. I first interviewed her two weeks after his death and obviously she was very emotional. When I interviewed her again in December, and asked her how much of an emotional journey making this movie had been for her, she got tears in her eyes. She was such a great interview…”
VOLUME 101 ISSUE 3
Kristien Morato in her dress by Belgian fashion designer Nicky Vankets at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles, California.
way around. I always try to go to my favorite Belgian restaurant, the BXL Café. http://bxlrestaurants.com I made a few Belgian friends throughout the years and I always meet them there. It’s a nice place. And as a bonus, the staff always hooks me up with (a) Gini (soda), one of the things that I miss the most
VISIT US
Do you miss your home country too? “Not really, no. Of course I miss Belgium from time to time, but the more I go back there, the more disappointed I get. I think it’s because so much has changed ever since I moved to California five years ago. All my friends have jobs now, they are married, have a family... and they don’t go out very often anymore. It’s really hard to keep in touch with them because of work, and the time change … But I really miss my mom, my sister and my godchild, Milla, and the fact that I don’t get to visit my dad’s grave. I miss frites, mayonnaise, frituur, kebab, preparé, paprikachips, my mom’s spaghetti, bread from ‘de bakker’, and last but not least: being able to go out as long as you want (no last call!). But you would never consider moving back to Belgium? “Never! I have never been happier than I am right now. I really love my life with my husband and dogs, here in California. I feel at home here and am much happier than I ever was in Belgium. I have dual citizenship but I feel more American than Belgian. I think in English, I dream in English and talk to my dogs in English. The last time I was in Belgium, my friends even told me that I was getting an accent in Dutch. Sometimes I have trouble speaking it, especially when it has been a couple of weeks. Luckily I am still writing in Dutch, otherwise I would have forgotten a lot more. When I speak Dutch now, I tend to use more English words because I can’t come up with the Dutch word. But I’m sure this is something that happens to every expat after a while…” – Leentje De Leeuw from-chicago-with-words.blogspot.com
Julian Bros. Bakery
ON THE
Home of the Michigan Mattentaart
WEB:
www. gazette vandetroit. com
about Belgium! The only downside to traveling are that I basically live out of a suitcase and it does get a bit lonely after a while. I spend half of the year in hotel rooms, so obviously I miss my husband and my three dogs (I have two Great Danes and a Chihuahua). But my job allows me to
visit places I would normally not even think of visiting, like Santa Fe, Atlanta, Toronto or even Cancun.”
27805 Harper Avenue St. Clair Shores, MI 48081 Phone: (586) 435-3026 Flemish and French spoken We use Schwarzkopf products
518 S. Rochester Rd. Clawson, MI 48017 www.julianbrothers.com Call us at (248) 588-0280 - (248) 588-0281 Fax (248) 588-7980 Try our raisin egg bread ("koekebrood") and Belgian "mattentaarten". Custom decorated cakes, cookies, pizza and much more.