Adrenaline ‘Rush’: Nickelodeon star sweet on hitting the ‘Big Time’

FROM BOSTON HERALD – When Kendall Schmidt was 6, he starred in a Chex cereal commercial with his two older brothers.
Since then, he’s been working for his big break. His family moved from his small hometown of Andover, Kan., to New York and then to Los Angeles to help the boys pursue showbiz careers.
Last year, Schmidt, who had appeared on “Gilmore Girls,” “ER” and “CSI: Miami,” landed his first regular series role as lead singer Kendall on “Big Time Rush.” The comedy, about four friends (including Logan Henderson, James Maslow and Carlos Pena Jr.) who move from Minnesota to Los Angeles to form a popular boy band, has become one of Nickelodeon’s biggest hits.
The one-hour special, “Big Time Christmas,” with guest stars Miranda Cosgrove (Nickelodeon’s “iCarly”), Fabio and Snoop Dogg, airs tonight at 8. The episode features the new song “Beautiful Christmas,” the group’s duet with Cosgrove on a cover of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You,” and “Let’s Stay in Our PJs (All Christmas Long)” with Snoop Dogg.

“It’s my favorite episode we’ve filmed so far. We all are our characters, just less exaggerated,” Schmidt told the Herald in a telephone interview from Los Angeles on a day off from filming. “It’s really cool. I get to play myself most of the time. I just have to have a little more energy.”
That’s not the only similarity between the real and the fictional Kendall. On the show, the boys live in the Palm Woods Hotel, where they are surrounded by other actors and singers. Schmidt lived in the Oakwood, an apartment complex in Los Angeles known for housing those trying to break into the business.
“I lived in the Oakwoods for five years,” he said. “I know exactly what that experience is like – being surrounded by a whole bunch of other kids trying to be actors. Kirsten Dunst and Christina Milian used to babysit me.”
Now 20, Schmidt credits his parents with making his career possible.
“Acting and singing is the only thing I’ve ever known and my whole family has ever known,” he said. “I really couldn’t have done anything if it wasn’t for my parents being very supportive. It’s not very often that parents drop everything and take their kids where they want to go to do what they want to do. I gotta give my dad a lot of props for holding strong. It’s taken like 14 years to get to where I am.”
Schmidt said he has a lot of time to think about his career while touring with Big Time Rush.
“I’m just fortunate to even be working and to say, ‘Yeah, I’m a working actor,’ when someone asks me what I do for a living,” he said.
That outlook helps him get along with his co-stars.
“We all find each other entertaining and funny,” he said. “Yeah, sure, we all fight because it’s like having three brothers you spend 16 hours a day with, but it never goes beyond a certain point. We usually end up making each other laugh and we forget about it, and honestly, it’s not really that serious. We’re not curing cancer. We’re making a TV show. We just want to make people laugh. That’s the whole goal. So to take it too seriously and to get into too big of arguments is just ridiculous.”