"I started Cultural Quarantine and that opened doors for many opportunities"

Miriam Spritzer is a board member of the Club of the Association of Foreign Press Correspondents USA and an entertainment reporter for various leading news outlets in Brazil, such as Cosmopolitan, L’Officiel, Versatille, and Harper’s Bazaar. Spritzer has covered famous Broadway shows as well as interviewed major names in the movie and fashion industries. In a conversation with Foreign Press USA, she shared about her unusual start in journalism, the ups and downs of the pandemic in entertainment, and her tips to succeed in an ever-changing sector. 

Unlike many journalists out there, Spritzer didn’t study journalism in university, at least not until later in her career. Growing up as a performing arts enthusiast inside a medical family, she decided to study Business Administration and Marketing at ESPM. It was only when she moved to New York that the opportunity to audition for a foreign correspondent role in a leading news channel based in Porto Alegre, that Spritzer decided to give reporting a try. 

“I auditioned for it with every certainty in my body that I was not going to get the job, because I had zero experience in journalism at the time, and in the end, I got the job,” she says. 

When it was time to cover her first big stories, Spritzer had the chance to connect her passion for performing arts with her work. Having grown up knowing people in the industry and what the behind-the-scenes process looked like, she was well-equipped to interview people in musical theatre. 

“It was something that Brazilians didn’t have access to, and many journalists were not equipped to talk about musical theatre in the way that I was, because I wasn’t a journalist, I was musical theatre person.”

From Broadway to red carpets, Spritzer interviewed various renowned names in the entertainment business including Antonio Banderas, William Ivey Long, and Scarlett Johansson. 

“Pre-pandemic red carpet coverage can be compared to a war zone in the sense that you are out there, you are super exposed, you don’t know what you are going to get.” 

The hectic camera arrangements and busy in-person events coverage settled down when Covid-19 came into the picture. However, instead of going crazy about the lack of content for the following magazine edition, Spritzer decided to reach out to creators who were adapting to a digital landscape. 

“I started hunting for cultural activities that were happening, whether it was a museum doing a virtual tour or a live-streamed concert…I started Cultural Quarantine and that opened doors for many opportunities.”

From interviewing Frances Rufelle (who won a Tony Award for playing Eponine and Les Misérables) through an Instagram live to getting involved with podcasting, Spritzer was committed to continuing creating. After the podcast (Atlflix) that she guest-starred in for a long time came to an end, she decided to partner with other creatives in Brazil to start two podcasts: Keeping Up with the Pop and Controle Remoto (Remote Control). 

It was also during this time that she was hired by L’Officiel to interview Brazilian actors and directors, even if she was based in New York. Some of them were people that Spritzer grew up watching on TV. 

“When I interview someone from here, or England, or Spain, or any other country, I interview them with the perspective of a foreigner. Now when I am interviewing someone that has been on Brazilian television forever, I am interviewing them with the point-of-view of a Brazilian. Since I haven’t been there for a while, I can still ask questions that are unusual.”

Lastly, Spritzer gave us a word of advice for upcoming entertainment journalists, who are drawn by the glitz and the glamor of interviewing names within the arts and culture sectors. 

“It requires a lot of flexibility, it requires instinct and a good sense of humor. It is a tricky area because you have to be very serious, but also a lot of fun!”