Netflix Star: Leah Kreitz

Did you see Netflix’s “Dash & Lily”? During the Christmas holiday season, two teenagers living in NYC develop mutual romantic feelings as they open up to each other by trading messages as well as dares in a notebook around a multitude of locations. Along the way, they deal with how their blossoming romance affects and is impacted by friends, family members, and previous love interests. Leah Kreitz, who plays Aryn, a member of Lily's caroling group.

Born in Los Angeles, she was first seen on screen while her mother was pregnant on the family's annual holiday special as "The Gomez Family Singers." After living in sunny California, Leah's family moved to even sunnier Las Vegas. She graduated from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas with her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Stage & Screen Acting and has since moved to Brooklyn, where she currently resides with her husband Gabe Quiroga and their cat Cecilia.

In addition to acting, Leah and her twin sister Dana Kreitz are developing projects under their production company, Hapa Media, and she is also a Resident Artist with New Light Theater Project. When not working, Leah can usually be found with her nose in a book, bent backwards in a yoga class, flying trapeze at TSNY, or hitting the slopes either upstate or back on the west coast.

When we met Leah Kreitz, it was an instant bond surrounded by laughter and that electric excitement of a new friendship with a like minded soul. She can sing like an angel, dance like a fever, and even flies through the air on a trapeze, all with an intelligence and presentness that will knock your socks off.

She is currently appears in Season One of High Herstory.

High Herstory: Tell us about yourself, what are your passions? 

Leah Kreitz: I’m a Filipino-American actor & storyteller based in Brooklyn, New York. I’m passionate about intersectional feminism, representation in the media, yoga, flying trapeze, equity in storytelling, sustainability, crop tops, and Harry Potter (like a true millennial) but JK Rowling doesn’t get any more of my money.

High Herstory: We love Hapa Media!  Tell us about your production company and why “fuck underrepresentation” is such an important stance to take as story tellers? 

Leah Kreitz: And Hapa Media loves High Herstory! Hapa Media was born out of a desperate need to see more people who look like me in front of and behind the camera. Hapa means mixed Asian or mixed race, and our focus is on telling stories through a mixed lens. I’m half filipino & fall into a category that’s not easily defined, so people frequently have no idea what to do with me. We’re interested in bringing to the forefront of cinema people who previously haven’t fit into the “right boxes” in this industry.

We as a society have been conditioned to see through the lens of white cis male protaganists, which clearly has a colossal impact on the real world and our default heightened empathy for white cis males. They are not the only category of humans whose stories matter (nor are they the only people who can work a camera & a boom mic).

Even in my own writing, I have found myself initially assuming that my lead character is a white man and needing to actively re-frame in order to adjust. This is learned. And I truly believe that we as humans and consumers of stories can, through seeing it on screen, learn to shift our defaults and begin to identify with and empathize with previously marginalized people and their experiences.

High Herstory: You joined us on set to play a warrior and one of Mulan’s friends, as well as the Emperor.  What was it like to be on set with High Herstory to help tell the story of Mulan?  

Leah Kreitz: What a fun day! I was on set with my twin Dana Kreitz, and Mulan was played by an old friend of mine, Celia Au, who I hadn’t seen in ages and she is just absolutely the coolest and funniest lady out there. The High Herstory sets are my favorite because there’s no bullshit – we’re there to tell a story. You always feel like you can collaborate and have a wild idea & it will get heard & and it will be fucking fun.

High Herstory: What was the funniest moment?

Leah Kreitz: When I put on the emperor mustache. I looked just like my uncle.

Also, Dana and I on horseback. I can’t stop laughing just thinking about it.

High Herstory: As an actress and storyteller what made you want to be a part of a project that is pro-cannabis? 

The war on drugs is racist. Affecting the public opinion of cannabis in a positive way is a fight against that racism.

High Herstory: How will  representation help combat racism against the asian community? 

Normalize viewing Asian-Americans as  part of America. Asian people as people. Humanize everybody.

High Herstory: What are you working on now? 

Hapa is currently in post-production on a collection of short films titled “On Death & Dying” which the team is really excited about. We shared our pilot “Coming Out” on vimeo at the start of the pandemic & used its uncanny similarities to current times to fundraise with City Harvest, which helps feed people in need of food in NYC.

Covid-times has been hard on live theater. The  New Light Theater Project , where I am a resident artist, has begun creating radio dramas, utilizing dialogue, music, and sound effects. They just shared “Invincible Ones”, a new play about badass women dealing with grief, in which I play the lead Zoe.

Me personally? “Dash & Lily” premiered on Netflix over the winter and I was stoked to have a recurring role in such an awesomely diverse cast. I’ve also been partnering with the Women of Color Conference  (coming up this March 20-21) to help bring attention to the powerful work that they’re doing. Other than that, I’m mostly just chilling, singing, and working on throwing a layout at Trapeze School New York. It’s been a stressful year, so I’m working on being okay with the downtime and not feeling like I need to write “Hamlet”.

Who is an important woman to you that we would all benefit from knowing more about? 

Dana Kreitz! My sister is the tits. The  Women of Color Conference  get exposure to industry leaders through engaging panels, training them to see the power in both others and themselves.

Follow Leah’s career on Instagram and keep posted on The Upcoming collection of short films “On Death & Dying” from Hapa Media.