One-on-one with Strombo

STORY BY JUNE SEO

When Nick Kattis joined the Sheridan’s Broadcast Journalism program, he never imagined that his second interview would be with George Stroumboulopoulos at the RBC Theatre.

Kattis won the opportunity to interview the CBC host and personality live on stage last Friday. Prior to the interview, Stroumboulopoulos interviewed Raine Maida, front- man of Our Lady Peace, and MTV’s Aliya-Jasmine Sovani.

All contestants submitted a video entry explaining why they should be chosen to interview Stroumboulopoulos.

“I think it’s a really cool that there is a faculty at Sheridan that reaches out to people like George, Raine Maida and Aliya-Jasmine to have them come speak to people who are interested because they either are the ones you one day want to be or talking to,” said Kattis.

Although he was initially hesitant, Kattis decided to enter the contest a few hours before the deadline.

“It was 9:30 p.m. on Feb. 28 when I decided to enter and submissions were due March 1 at midnight. I wrote down a few lines that were symbolic of what I wanted to say, and started filming in the Broadcast Journalism room that I was in for 12 hours that day,” said Kattis.

With less than a week to prepare for the interview, Kattis made it priority to find out as much as he could about Stroumboulopoulos.

“There is so much to him [George] that I didn’t want to do an inadequate amount of research I really wanted to be prepared,” said Kattis. “I have 210 tabs open on my laptop right now because that’s the amount of research I did behind this.”

Kattis asked Stroumboulopoulos about his family, his role as a broadcast journalist and he even surprised the CBC host with an old picture.

Stroumboulopoulos shared the knowledge he’s gathered from working in the media for more than 20 years.

“The most beautiful part about this is when you surrender to the fact that you are the least interesting part about this job. What you cultivate with others is what’s most important,” said Stroumboulopoulos.

But behind his calm composure on stage, Kattis was nervous.

“I’ve never interviewed anyone live on stage and personally it didn’t turn out how I imagined it, but I think it went a lot better than it could have,” he said.