In 1979 in Paul Verhoeven's "Soldier of Orange" Derek de Lint played in the scene, which had became almost classical: he danced together with Rutger Hauer unforgettable tango. Hauer and Verhoeven are working at American career by now, but De Lint is still here. His supporting role in "Soldier of Orange" set up him for lead roles in "Kort Amerikaans", "Van de Koele Meeren des Doods", "Bastille" and "Een Zaak van Leven en Dood", this month [February, 1986] "The Assault" by the Mulisch's book has a premiere. Of course, Derek de Lint star here. If you do not know him from the cinema, you should know him from any TV series for instance from "Herenstraat" and you know him in any case he is the most beautiful man of The Netherlands, according to "The Viva" or one of the most beautiful men, according to "Opzij". In any case De Lint is one of the best and the most popular actors of our country [The Netherlands] and therefore Guus Luijters, the editor-in-chief of "PLAYBOY", has taken the interview at him.

PLAYBOY: You star in "The Assault", it is a film about the war again. There are many war films, is it too much about it?

DE LINT: When I make "Soldier of Orange", I think: Jesus, it is another war film when it finished, I am sick to death of war films. Not so long ago they become to make interesting films about those times. Many people think: "this time has passed lets think of the present not dwell on the past". But as they become 50, the past begins to work, it originates conflict.
I see it around myself, often it is not only those people who have experienced terrible things like loss of family members and such. In the first place "The Assault" is not a film about the war, it is no war film. "The Assault" is a story of somebody, who the war had forced out from the cosy, good world. His uncle was provided for him well, he gone to study, he has become a doctor, he married, he has a child, he has his own house here, a successful man. But he had experienced in his youth something, that he had never forgotten. It hides and produces grief. In the eye of the public I have such a successful life too: I am married, have children, and a career, but there is more to real life. Although I did not experience anything in my youth that you can compare with what happen with Anton Steenwijk in "The Assault". And I even did not play the past for the war period in the film. A little boy played as Anton Steenwijk in 12.

PLAYBOY: What reminds you of your childhood, the Beatles?"

DE LINT: The Hague in the sixties, yes, it was a fantastic time. In Scheveningen I didn't know a lot of clubs, but Palais de Dance, Kurhaus, Casino, Pam-Pam. Top Ten, de Beat-kelder, de Sport, de Drie Stoepen, de Marathon I can not forget. The [Rolling] Stones, The Who, The Pretty Things came to The Hague. The Hague was the big world and I was in the good place. As you are in the end of your puberty, and you begin to think about what you want and you live in such a time, then you can not complain. It is an unique decade.

PLAYBOY: How did you look?

DE LINT: I had long, curly hair. I was tall and a very lean.

PLAYBOY: And what do you carry out?

DE LINT: I was terribly busy with girls; girls, and the rest was a matter of secondary importance. Of course, I did worry that I would be kicked out of school, but still…

PLAYBOY: What do you mean exactly "busy with girls"? I assume there was no problems? You were a handsome young man.

DE LINT: No, but I was just busy getting the one, the girl with whom you can break through every dimension, with whom you can reach the top of the top.

PLAYBOY: As I remember you grew up in the period where the sexual morality had changed. I am older than you by a couple years, but it is a complete difference. When I began to have sex for instance, there was still no pill. We were constantly deathly afraid.

DE LINT: All the same there were condoms?

PLAYBOY: Yes, but it was really bad thing in which all were always damaged.

DE LINT: But when I was eighteen the pill was not on the market yet either.

PLAYBOY: But it was good that venereal diseases were not so transmitted. In those times you could have sex without problems.

DE LINT: Now it is equally as risky. You can have sex if you are willing to risk your life. But what I mean is that it is good that the pill exists, of course, but it is not so good if the girls use it per definition. Often they want [to use] the pill, but, of course, it means a story of enormous hormonal drawback and the parents would object [to the pill], because it would lead to unlimited sex. I was always aware of the danger of making someone pregnant. I had always realized that if somebody can be pregnant because of your touch that your life can change radically. Probably I think this way because my parents were open about sex. They always reacted in a good way. I can remember that I once lay with a girl on the bed, naked, with music; my parents were away, you know how it is. I did not hear that my parents came back home again. My father came in to say that he was back and we were lying there. "Sorry," he said, and he went away, and then later he knocked and came in with a disc of violin music. "Here," he said, "maybe this will help the atmosphere." Later I began to realize how important such a reaction was. A wrong reaction can bring frustration and traumas. The parents of my former girlfriend had done all they could to drive their daughter and love apart, ridiculous! I had a very big love with a girl who was ready to reach a grade to become a schoolteacher, while I had HAVO only (Havo is a schoolsystem, you have mavo (lowest), havo, atheneum, gymnasium (highest). Her parents returned and learned that we made love with each other, and not a little, but boisterously and limitlessly. When my parents found out about it, they decided to discuss this situation with her parents. Those people said something like this: "probably you have heard about your son and our daughter…" And my father said: "Well, madam, we were young too!" Those people became furious and they said: "You are just glad that your son is not gay." It was such reaction. And as you may imagine, that girl left school, just before taking her grade [to become a teacher], and flew to England. Later I felt that the girl should break with her parents for me not the other way round. Afterwards I thought that it was good that I was not married to such a woman.

PLAYBOY: It's dreadful.

DE LINT: Yes, it's incomprehensible.

PLAYBOY: Exactly, at that time it was impossible for you to say what you have said now.

DE LINT: Maybe I used to fall for the wrong types of girl. When I was in the Kunstacademie in Enschede I had another big love and her mother stopped us seeing each other because I had read her Wolkers in bed. Then her parents made her show them her letters. You can imagine it, you fall in love and in the early morning, as we are having breakfast in bed, I read out "Turkish Fruit"! It was splendid all the same!

PLAYBOY: You are complete romantic, eh?

DE LINT: Indeed, I could only have sex with a girl if I was completely in love with her, I was looking for the ideal woman. But at the same time, it was very pleasurable. I have fantastic memories. Well, I remember how I first removed a bra [of my girl friend] for lovemaking. I have no idea if it was the first time, but in any case I remember that it was for the first time. We went to bed to make love and I knew that you should try and take it slowly, like a good meal. I undressed her, opened her bra in the front... [and could not control myself] and came early. A disaster! But as I think of it: it is fantastic! As her bra opened and then I saw two of such breasts!

PLAYBOY: And how did your big love stories end?

DE LINT: With the girl who went to England, I wrote to her for a long time and planed to take a vacation, six weeks in a tent and three days in her room. Then I received a phone call telling me that I may not come. She had met an Englishman. That other girl was working as model. She had traveled with a foreign photographer to Europe. I was crazed with jealousy. I perished, only from a fear of losing her. It ended because she cheated on me with another fellow it was my happiness. I was in the Kunstacademie in Enschede and at that time I knew, I was completely sure that I should not continue. It was not what I wanted, I wanted to act in the theatre, I did not want to remain in Twente, I wanted to go to Amsterdam, it is the center of all [things in an universe]. My parents did not approve of that, they thought that I should stay and she was against it too. She began being difficult and believed that I had to show before her parents eyes that I could take care for her and when our relationship finished, I thought: I did what I wanted. And it was very important for me. And so I was going to Amsterdam. I had stayed for the Theater school and I was residing in rooms on the canal and nights I was in the bar and thought: Jesus, what is this?

PLAYBOY: What is this?

DE LINT: Amsterdam. What happens with me, was – as I sum up a beautiful sense– that I discovered my own possibilities were limitless. Above all it was the first years of wild life, but God, what happens? You meet somebody, fall in love and you go and live together. Then you'll have a household and then you meet another woman with whom you are having a good time, that kind of things.

PLAYBOY: You are not somebody to stay a bachelor.

DE LINT: No, but I can not imagine absolutes, it sounds mad, but I do not feel that I would ever marry again. I am completely happy, it would be wrong to think that I could ever choose another. I can imagine that I could live without my wife, but I would not marry again, if the relationship began with such a result in mind I would not be able to proceed. I think also, that it is better for me to be alone, I have more of an opportunity to write. I am pleased with the past, I feel that it was perfect, but if I was another type of person I would have tried to engage in writing.

PLAYBOY: Have you written much?

DE LINT: During the time I was in the Kleinkunstacademie I was writing daily, but my problem was that it was difficult to pute the ideas in a certain form. When you can not make it, you are in vacuum. Later, when I was unemployed, I received the disgusting offers and thought: "I can do better, if I shall try to write a script and then to work in cinema.

PLAYBOY: PLAYBOY: Did you sold something? You were near the flame, so you could have got something.

DE LINT: I once made a Canadian-Dutch co-production and when it was finished, I got the great idea that I could work together with my wife. I had submitted it to a producer and he was completely enthusiastic. I received a certain sum for doing the script and was going to write, but then more work came and the script lay at home all time. It was a nice idea, but it didn't have a future.

PLAYBOY: What has prevented it?

DE LINT: It is difficult to say. It is difficult to me to find the form for the ideas that occur to me, but at the same time I feel that I have more of a talent to work in the cinema instead of writing the scripts. I still think I can write the book when I am over 50.

PLAYBOY: Do you think of death?

DE LINT: I know that my life can end at any moment. Harry Mulisch wrote about it in "De zaak 40/61" ("The Case 40/61"). It is not the end of a story of the Eichmann's frame-up trial, [in the future a new dictatorial power can think of new ways to prosecute people] and it can happen one morning and a prison-truck stops at your door, only because you wear a blue sweater or your hair begins to have grey. [Wars are not history, the reason for putting people in jail can differ (not Jews in the future, but people with grey hair e.g.).] I realized that I am becoming older. I know that you can die at any moment, but I do not think of it constantly. I would not like to ask myself each day how many days I still have. No, I am only in middle of my life.

PLAYBOY: What do you feel about yourself getting older?

DE LINT: It is splendid, it makes the day is nice and it is thrilling.

PLAYBOY: Really?

DE LINT: Yes. When I was 16, I found out about the existence of a lot of tremendous things, but I could not understand them. Now as I mature I understand as all occurs. I find it exciting, that now I can give form to those things which I see. I am swimming in endless sea and as I feel the ground under my feet, I am again inside a whirlpool. But I see that I still make the same mistakes that I did at 16.

PLAYBOY: It is a happy point. It should be all the same dreadful to change such man.

DE LINT: But I believe that it is excellent to be such man. I always find something new, that I am excited about something. I am bored, I should say in definite jargon, if I drive all time in the same car. But as an actor I think it is perfect to show up in all kinds of forms.

PLAYBOY: But in that man is yet that boy.

DE LINT: It is good if a man retains something of the child in his nature. In politics today people think that is a synonym for hypocrisy, and it happens that everyone takes it all so seriously. If a man is only a man, and has not a child in his soul, see how that turns out. When it is like that many people believe the politicians. If you see the hands moving the puppets why do you still believe in the puppetshow?

PLAYBOY: How are you?

DE LINT: All is right.

PLAYBOY: I mean your way of life? Are you rich?

DE LINT: If that means that you invested your money in stocks and each day you call on an exchange, no, I am not rich. I enjoy life. I have my own house and when there is money, we live very well, if there is no money, we live worse. I believe that it is a healthy way of life. Of course, I plan something in life. My father always helped me with my taxes and now my business has become a professional firm. Before I worked with an agent, and now I work with attorneys. It is the type of thing that can improve my work. My business can be such that you will not receive the fee until you are finished with the work. But it is difficult to become rich in The Netherlands if you only work in cinema or TV. I now work in a TV series, which will be on the air the last quarter of this year. When you work in TV, the public notices you. And I can film only in two - three films a year, it is my limit.

PLAYBOY: What do you in leisure time?

DE LINT: My greatest hobby is photography. I got my first camera when I was 12 and I now have a gigantic archive.

PLAYBOY: What do you take photos of?

DE LINT: All the fine things that surround my life. But these home-garden-and-kitchen photos of my family the wife and children are not interesting to others. Also I very much love to fiddled around the old cars, as it is not seem strange.

PLAYBOY: To fiddle?

DE LINT: Yes, I think, that it is cool. If I shall break off to be the actor, I shall work as a grease-monkey.

PLAYBOY: Do you have old cars?

DE LINT: Yes, of course, I do not have a collection of 1932 "Jaguars". The real fans have a warm garage under their house where three "Jaguars" stand and evenings they take whisky and go there to be with their love. But it is not for me. When I was 17, I was busy working with old cars in the early days because I had no money. Now I have earned so much that I can do nothing personally, but the love has remained. I have an old "Peugeot". I love old cars. And the older the better.

PLAYBOY: For an example you would get one of those old Citroen, the first cars driven.

DE LINT: They are magnificent, but I think it is impossible to live in the center of town with such a car. You would sleep uneasily and each morning you would jump and up and look to make sure the car is still there. I have an old "Peugeot", I have put it together with the guys from the auto shop. I can not do all the work, for example, I can not be engaged in welding. I like to do all kinds of things, different things, but to do something really in depth - just one thing, no matter what is working against it, that has never been one of my strongest points. That it is really enjoyable to me when I have finished something and now have passed on to the higher level. It is wonderful. You can look back and see what you have learned and automatically you feel a pull to learn even more [in other things]. It has not happened with photography and cars, those hobbies have always remained. I hope they can move forward. Now love with cars is revised, in my opinion it should be brought back in the old style.

PLAYBOY: If we come back to your way of life, what most enjoyable for you?

DE LINT: To be with people who are fond me and whom I love. To try to take some distance from every day life, without escaping into "an ivory tower", but still to build my own world.

PLAYBOY: Your world will be constantly threatened of course.

DE LINT: Absolute not. But I try to avoid talking about my private life. 99 from 100 people, who you know, you watched on TV. I think, 50 years you can play at theatre and you are unknown. You can made 10 films with that result, but when you will play in one TV series, at once you become well-known. TV is complete tremendous. It makes a good impression, as though you so live each day. It is wonderful in the most cases, it is touching, but it is irritating sometimes. But that it threatens to me daily, it is a nonsense. The popularity can attracts, but since the very beginning I am adjusted against a press. When I was filmed in "Soldier of Orange", they begun to say that I hung up on them when they called me from "Prive" (the scandalous Dutch TV show). I thought, that it is complete nonsense, if someone asks me to give interview, I will not hang up. And now, 10 years ago, I hide nothing. But I believe, that I should protect my family.

PLAYBOY: Bardot claimed: "my private life is the only thing I have that is mine, and they still want to take it away". She is busy her private life a long time too.

DE LINT: But you can not compare me with Bardot. Bardot was world-famous. I am not. She was a sex-symbool.

PLAYBOY: You are all the same. All schoolgirls are in love you.

DE LINT: So, so, so... it is wonderful, if someone had found the love. For an example, I have taken my children to a zoo and I see, that a girl of a group recognizes me and she runs to me. Other children seen it and run to me too. All ask to sign an autograph and while I am writing down the final scribbles, such girl says: "What's your name again?". [she is asking a signature but does not really know who he is, she knows the face, but not the name] And I understand, that I should face reality. You say, that all schoolgirls are in love with me, but I think: there are many schoolgirls, who do not know about me.

PLAYBOY: What do you feel being sex - symbol?

DE LINT: If I was it, it would upset me.

PLAYBOY: You are it.

DE LINT: It only happened because of mass media. Three ladies from "The Viva" were sitting on the phone evenings. They laughed, howled, roared and they had sherry, white wine and small bite of a cheese and called up 120 arbitrary subscribers to ask, whom they consider as the most beautiful man of the Netherlands. It was after Herenstraat, that a lot of people had seen me and it made a great impression and for that moment you are opening, that Derek de Lint is "the beautiful man of the Netherlands". From that moment many girls believe really that you are the prettiest man of The Netherlands.

PLAYBOY: Why don't you like that?

DE LINT: If you are 17 or 18 then you have dreams that if you enter a place where a girl is sitting madly in love talking to her boyfriend, that as soon you enter the place, then she will look at the boy who she was with and thinks: 'Sorry but the guy who now enters the place... that is the man of my dreams.' Yes it is nice, but when it happens 10 years later, it can upset only. You meet the gorgeous woman and can only sign an autograph for her. It is one nice thing, that you can do. It is very difficult to speak about it, it is that area of a life, which I try to avoid. This is such point upon which I say: Until here and not further, but let I tell you: As 100 girls are saying that they like you, and they say those words on 100 different ways and 99 times you can say "no, thanks" or "nice to talk to you for a while" and once somebody comes to you with a look in her eyes... and then it becomes difficult.

PLAYBOY: Is your wife jealous?

DE LINT: She says she isn't. She would be jealous if I fell in love, she would feel threatened. But if I should make a bed scene in a film, she is absolutely not jealous.

PLAYBOY: Do you difficult to make erotic scenes?

DE LINT: It is hard.

PLAYBOY: How so?

DE LINT: It is so difficult because it will usually be planned. One day you will only walk on the street and the next day you do an erotic scene, "In the morning you go to do this and that". Actually you need to take a long time for something like that. It is necessary for people to be there who could create a certain atmosphere for an actress and an actor, who will play this scene to make it seem true. And I speak not only about the director, who should give some time too.

PLAYBOY: It seem, the eroticism in the Dutch films is actually always obligatory.

DE LINT: I think it is splendid that in "The Assault" there was almost no eroticism. But there are always people who still think that a good bed scene helps a film on a commercial level. There is nothing so terrible as having to watch sex scenes.

PLAYBOY: What do you say about porno?

DE LINT: Nothing. It doesn't do anything for me. Sometimes I wonder if I should like or think more of things like porno, but it does nothing for me at all.

DE LINT: Pornography seems a nightmare to me. But I will not say to anyone that it should be forbidden. In my opinion the porn industry is very large. But I believe that it should be a choice. And it is so with everyone alive, you can choose, you shouldn't be forced. When I think of erotica, I do not think of a huge number of sex acts, but I recollect those erotic moments that I have experienced, determine tensions, I saw that seldom or never. When I see porn photos I do not think that they are beautiful or exciting, therefore I would like to take such photos which excite me and not men. Also I would like to make a calendar with 12 of the most of well-known people in the Netherlands, the people who you never see represented naked and they can take sexy photos.

PLAYBOY: You worked as model.

DE LINT: When I was in the Kunstacademie. I worked there in a factory as shift-worker. As I worked a week, I was able to take two hours of photos.

PLAYBOY: What did you do?

DE LINT: Fashion. I was able to do fashion very well so it all went very smoothly. I thought that it was nice to work with pretty girls and you become dreadfully spoiled: a lunch of fish and white wine and you still have 800 guldens. I had bought very many things here. It was my first trip to America, the cars, all of it. But I could not work here anymore, though it was a pity.

PLAYBOY: Why can not you do it?

DE LINT: It was realistic. As I went a week to an island , a fantastic flight, hotel and all was paid, I received as a model 5000 guldens. But as an actor I receive the fee and they might not pay. I could not do this work because I always remain Derek de Lint.

PLAYBOY: When you were 16, did you think you would become a star?

DE LINT: Completely not. I was busy with paints and drawings and later above all with photography. Then I was at the Kunstacademie I had this feeling, therefore I went to Amsterdam, but then it was not that I wanted to be in films too. At present it is important to become well-known and adored, but I am not interested in that. If you let your successes go to your head, it is an artistic suicide. I was never setting out to carve out a career for myself.

PLAYBOY: But Sylvia Kristel says that she wants to get world-famous. And it happened too.

DE LINT: And she is still famous. But I do not want to be famous. After the success of "Soldier of Orange", I have thought: "it is just what I wanted to make it, as a professional actor". But on the day of the premiere of "Soldier of Orange", all guests were in tuxedos, in spotlights, the public standing behind barriers, police sat astride the horses, Rutger and Jeroen rode motorcycles and all of us arrived in an old Rollsen. In a hall was the Queen Juliana, Prince Bernhard, Queen - mother Beatrix and Claus. And then my scene was, where suddenly I was in Russia and I have to go shit. I looked at the loge filled with the royal family, and what they saw of me was my bum and I thought: "Jesus!"

PLAYBOY: Was "Soldier of Orange" your first film?

DE LINT: My debut was a French film of Techine. I was busy with the screen-test of "Soldaat van Oranje" when I got a small role in that film. I played radio reporter and I had to do a report, in French, of what happened here: a full train comes in to Central Station, and every time as I stumbled on my words, that full train with all those people had to come again back into the Station. When it happened two times, they thought something like this: what is idiotic?

PLAYBOY: How did you come across the screen test for "Soldier of Orange"?

DE LINT: After the Theatre school I played in a piece of Hugo Claus. It was "Thuis" with Ank van der Moer, Elly van Stekelenburg and Leo Beijers. That was not something of which you say: "God, we are making something great." I had the feeling that I experienced the ruin of a theatre, that I was ill among wreckage. This piece flopped and then was I was unemployed. I was registered by the job center and after two weeks I experienced what never happens - I was called up by an officeholder, who said: "you are registered here as an actor, but can you also dance?" I say: "I have taken dance lessons." And he said: "and can you also sing?" "Well, I say, I have also taken singing lessons", but do not want to say a name of that singer, who taught me to sing. And they inform me that they have a vacancy for The Rocky Horror Show of Rene Solleveld and ask whether I want to take a screen test for it. I nearly shit in my trousers, but I did a screen test three times. They had de Zilvervloot sing, but I got the role in the end.

PLAYBOY: What did you do in the show?

DE LINT: I played a nice character, who is driving with his fiancee and his car breaks down around a castle. In the castle he becomes completely transsexual or whatever this is called, but in any case I disguised myself in a woman's dress and I wore high heeled shoes, fishnet stockings and a garter belt and I danced and this role was remembered by all who live.

PLAYBOY: Did you enjoy it most of all?

DE LINT: Most of all I would like to play in a comedy, but not at theatre, in cinema. I think it would be more tremendous, and I want to say that it is really one of those things that I can do. Comedy is am uncultivated area for me. I think that comedy and musicals are the most difficult genres.

PLAYBOY: There is a little humor.

DE LINT: Maybe it is so, but I do not believe it.

PLAYBOY: Let's get back to "Soldier of Orange".

DE LINT: My cousin liked Hans Kemna and Ineke van Wezel, who work for Rob Houwer, then I had a contract with them. All year you have to be ready to act 24 hours and 7 days a week. It is the kind of contract that hasn't been used since 1848. I received a ridiculous sum, but thought: " I am not going to become ill because of money". "The Soldier of Orange " was filmed in two periods and between them I played in Ate de Jong's "Blindgangers" and this film became my first premiere. "Soldier of Orange" and "Blindgangers" are a huge contrast. "Blindgangers" was very low budget. We filmed it all in half of Ate de Jong's house and in the other half, the man lived and worked during the day and we used his house. But there was a tremendous atmosphere. And at the same time I was filming "Soldier of Orange " along with all well-known actors, the very first Dutch film with a big budget.

PLAYBOY: How did you find Verhoeven?

DE LINT: I don't quite know. The cast in the room became the beefsteaks and Paul and Rob Houwer circled the location like lions and only they could scold and swear. And then there are massive special effects, huge scenes, it was imposing, it was real film country. I was the new face and after that I quickly began making other large projects. I really wanted to play in "Kort Amerikaans". It was based on one of my favourite books [of Wolkers]. I worked perfectly in this film and we had believed that we were making something simply fantastic, it would be a film which viewers would stand in line for kilometers to see.

PLAYBOY: Kort American flops.

DE LINT: I believe that about 500,000 people went to see it. If you release a film now and it pulls as many viewers, is it a success. Because it was a flop, it ended too fast. It was the most important for me, when I saw this film it was the first time I was confronted with what happened in "Soldier of Orange". During shootings of "Soldier of Orange" I was not the lead actor, I had seen none of the film, and could estimate it only on a premiere: by narrating and editing my role I had improved and also I thought: "it is fine, you have done it even better than you thought". I starred in "Kort Amerikaans" and I tried to give it all my best. When we were filming this film, I could add something in the script and the music. I thought: "Jesus, it will be the best film of my life". But when I saw the finished film, I saw something absolutely different. I had fallen along with this film.

PLAYBOY: What kind of a director would you like to work with?

DE LINT: I think it is nice if a director knows exactly what he wants. It is his film and not the actors' and he is the boss. An actor should be creative, think of possibilities for improvement, then there should be faith between the director and the actor, but not too friendly an atmosphere. Nine out of ten cases that actors may offer the director are not interesting. But I await a director that gets across an idea to me yet not treat us like cattle, although I also realize that often actors behave terribly.

PLAYBOY: Are you difficult?

DE LINT: You can ask my wife. I am very balanced. I work better if there is harmony, a relaxed atmosphere, where there is a place for humor. I think it is pleasant if I can go my own course and I do not want to work under pressure. But I have made some of the better things under pressure.

PLAYBOY: You appear to be very balanced and not overly emotional, but what are you really like?

DE LINT: I am willing and attentive, but I prefer to be reserved. I can pretend to be that way, but it is more natural. I would like to live in harmony, but the best things at times happened with me when this harmony was destroyed. I have learned in the last years as a husband, a father, and as an actor. When I look back at the work in "The Assault", I can not say: "God, I worked wonderfully and we were on common ground with Rademakers". It was horrible and angry. But I think that "The Assault" is my best film at present. I am a man of strong emotions and I could lose these emotions in this film. I had to collect myself and stop being the character that I played. In "The Assault" I was playing Anton Steenwijk This film was about his problems, but I felt a spiritual affinity with him, so I was on target. How the film was directed, how it was edited, it is very much of myself. The people want to know more about themselves, where their aggression is latent. I give the form for this like an actor. If I was an artist, I would tell people: go to an exhibition of my paintings. As an actor I say: go to see "The Assault" at cinemas on the 5th February [1986].

Playboy Nederland, February 1986

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