I survived being on Dutch TV

I’ve done some acting in the Netherlands. Normally, whenever someone needs an English-speaking character, I’ll get a call. I’ve played a casting director on ‘Onderweg naar Morgen,’ a catty modeling coach in ‘Radeloos,’ and a news reader in ‘Phileine Zegt Sorry.’ One of my favorite gigs was for the soap opera ‘Goede Tijden Slechte Tijden.’ In one of the story lines, the young love interest goes on a ski holiday and injures herself. Who plays the doctor? Me. I said, ‘You want me to be an American doctor, right?’ No, French. ‘But the lines are in English.’ Well, just say them with a French accent. And there I was on the set with Barbara and her daughter Charlie (Charlotte & Aukje / Lieke whatever). We were running our lines, and I wasn’t French enough. I tried again. Again I got the note ‘More French, please.’ Just for fun, I did a crazy, broad French accent – somewhere between John Cleese in ‘Holy Grail’ and Inspector Clouseau. And no one said anything, so I did it for camera. If you ever watch the clip back, you can see everyone dying with laughter in the middle of the scene. It was just that kind of hospital.

And then someone thought it would be a good idea to have me on the Big Film Quiz. Every year, Dutch Public Broadcasting gets a bunch of Dutch actors and makes them compete in a number of challenges involving film trivia. Sometimes they have to identify film quotes, and sometimes they compete to do the best re-enactment of famous film scenes. And every year it’s pretty fun. The host is Matthijs van Nieuwkerk from the closest thing the Dutch have to ‘The Daily Show,’ known as ‘De Wereld Draait Door.’

I know Matthijs van Nieuwkerk from his days as director of Amsterdam broadcaster AT5. It was there that we did the ‘Boom Chicago News’ in 2001. I know he speaks English, but he’s made a rule for himself not to do it on tv. So the story goes, he once did an interview with an American actor – the guy who played Ridge on ‘The Bold and the Beautiful.’ Apparently the plan was for Matthijs to ask difficult questions and make fun of the guy for being an airhead. Unfortunately, the plan backfired when Matthijs couldn’t quite understand the accent and couldn’t follow what the guy was saying. Since then, he made a rule: ‘Only in my native language.’ …If only I’d followed that rule.

(to be continued)