I took an English course.
I speak the language fairly well.
In a year, I'll speak English without an accent.
That's what I want.
Do you have plans to leave? -Yes, absolutely.
Yes, the Netherlands are a small country and...
...I want to work with other directors.
The Netherlands are too small. I want to remain a movie actor.
And that chance... I could wait for it in the Netherlands...
I have to go abroad.
In the beginning I was a bit distant and arrogant.
They've often told me to change my name.
But to change my name for one movie. No way.
I was fooling around with people.
With the people I'd be talking to... And if they really wanted me...
...they'd say "maybe we don't understand him".
"Maybe he wants more money."
But I didn't give a shit.
And they'd make my agent an offer.
Or I'd say it wasn't really interesting.
That was how I felt.
And later they'd say "we know he's not interested"...
"...but we'll just pay him a bit more."
And sometimes... most of the time...
Would you do it after all? -No, generally not.
But sometimes I would.
People are very easily offended here.
If you're at a party here and you turn your back to someone...
...at the wrong moment, you're in trouble.
That's why those parties are so strange.
Everybody goes "Oh, how are you? Hi, how are you?"
They're all constantly not turning their backs to each other.
Very scary.
Let me see.
I'll open the screen.
That's fun.
Well... -What's this?
This is a kind of garage.
This is great fun.
Bordering on strange.
This is a couple of fans who thought they had to give me a star.
Not an Oscar, but a real star. You can buy the name of a star.
So they found a star next to Orion.
Who thinks of that?
This is a wall with stuff.
Dandelions, a movie in Germany.
After Turkish Delight, Eureka.
Golden Globe Awards.
A documentary about a homeless guy that I made.
Dead or Alive.
Wedlock, Blind Fury, Ladyhawke, Blind Side.
I made around a hundred of them.
Legend of the Holy Drinker, NTSC.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, ok.
Blind Fury. This is all VHS.
This is almost all behind the scenes.
This is really old stuff.
I had around 15 movies documented in this way.
What's on them? You?
The rough work in action.
What it's really like.
Not how it's said to be.
This is the dialogue coach.
I pay 500 dollars for a session.
What does he do? -He has to check my accent.
For which part was this?
I haven't figured that out yet.
Let's see.
This one, I think.
REHEARSALS BLIND FURY (1989)
Is this priceless?
In a week, he did the fight with me.
I though I couldn't do it.
The funny thing is that in a sword fight...
...if the other person's good, you look good too.
The funny thing is that, for me, this isn't long ago.
This is yesterday for me.
Really? -Yes.
This is how I pay the rent. It's good.
I'm in the picture in a very strange way. Still.
Sometimes I'm on the big screen.
The rest travels the world on video, television and DVD.
And I've done very different things.
You can be good a certain number of times.
When I do 10 movies, 7 are good.
Five are quite decent and...
...two or three can be really good.
To become an actor who's wanted, they have to see your face.
And don't be too difficult about that.
If they don't see your face, you're gone in no time.
What I do is search. Search for...
...your limits, mainly.
And it all depends on how hard you search.
But... -Did you ever hit your head?
Of course, definitely. But generally, that gets cut out of the movie.
When you go too far.
What happens then?
That's not what we were talking about.
What happens when it goes wrong? -Yes.
I wanted to tell you something else, but now I lost it.
But now I want to know this first. -Yes.
You don't find my searching interesting.
Yes, I do. But when you say that sometimes you end up somewhere...
That seems scary to me.
Then you make a movie that sucks.
But it's so typically Dutch to start hammering on that.
That's up to people themselves.
How often can someone be brilliant in their lives? Add it up.
Well? -No, that's up to you.
I keep that to myself.
Yes? -But a couple of times.
A number of times, you'd say.
But you don't want to say when.
It's probably very different from what people think...
...no that's not true. They're just very special...
It's your own standard.
I think you found yourself brilliant in Legend of the Holy Drinker.
Yes, that's true.
It's best when you hardly notice it's acting.
That's beautiful.
When the skin's really thin...
...between the camera and your character.
I don't know how to explain, but there's a difference.
The first thing the director, Ermanno Olmi, said to me...
And I thought "I have to do this".
Too much fun. See if I can do it.
It's a fight between what you find interesting, in your heart...
...and what comes on your path.
The fight's about to which degree you hold your ground.
Can't you present yourself differently?
As in "Mr Hauer wants to play romantic movies"?
As in "Don't ask him to play the crazy creep anymore".
No you shouldn't tell people what they have to do.
Just look for it yourself.
But how can you make them know you're in for something else?
They don't think of it. It's always the same struggle.
It's a struggle that you won't often win.
Well, that's the question and...
...whether you... who wins.
I think you can answer that yourself.
ROMANIA
SET SHOOTS CAMERA ASCUNSA (2004)
I received an offer.
Did I want to read the script?
As simple as that.
I read the script and I thought it could be fun.
Good, exciting story.
A love story and thirty years after Turkish Delight...
...I felt like it.
It's the way we do it. That's the main thing.
You can do it in many ways.
But I like this way. Just in the street.
Make-up in the street. Very little money, very few tricks.
Everything has to be solved creatively.
You stay very close to reality.
Take this car that's coming.
If we were shooting now, we'd have to use it.
So we have a man with a lot of wood...
...and you wonder whether we need wood in the movie.
Know what I mean? You're constantly wondering...
...whether something will be included or not.
It's impossible to do that while it's being paid.
You just give it to yourself as a present.
And then you wait and see if it works.
And if it works really well, you get something very beautiful.
And that becomes part of your career.
Even if no one will ever see it, it still exists.
It's going well.
Do I touch him there? No. Ok.
Can you see your house from here?
Yes, there. One of those concrete stumps.
One of those apartment buildings? -Those concrete stumps, yes.
This is the most beautiful thing there is.
Out on the ocean, you feel finiteness and infiniteness at the same time.
That's such a beautiful feeling.
The big cradle of mama Water.
Have you always felt this? -Yes, always.
Always, yes.
Even as a child? -Yes, definitely.
I was always swimming in the Amstel, in between the turds.
Lovely.
A bit of a wild, rough boy, I think.
And sweet, very sweet.
I think that was the very first sentence I could say.
"Do you think I'm sweet?" I had a thick Amsterdam accent.
"Do you think I'm sweet?"
My mother came back from Indonesia. A cultural trip with my father.
They had done some acting there. Indonesia. On a ship.
And I was two or three.
I was a bit slow with everything. Slow with walking.
Slow with talking.
But my first sentence after they'd come back was...
..."Do you think I'm sweet?"
But... who was it?
"Els says I'm sweet."
That was the nanny.
Yes.
Let me see. A bit...
There it is.
I like to go away.
To go work and film a bit.
But coming home is the best.
And where is home? -In Friesland.
I found out there are five centuries of Frisians in my mother's blood.
So that's why I've always wanted to live there.
And the other anchor's my wife.
We've been together for 35 years.
It can be difficult. We're away from each other a lot.
And then suddenly we're back together for a month.
It's beautiful. She's a real anchor for me.
And then there's nothing for a long time.
And then there's the rest of the world.
It's always such fun. -Hello, sir.
Do you come here often?
I live here too. Bye! -Have fun.
See you later! -Yes.
I'm having black coffee on the rocks.
Normally, this is a whisky.
That's Ineke when we got to know each other.
This is Ineke's brother and he became my best friend.
He died at the age of 29, from Hodgkin's disease.
The only real movie star.
The statues are also from LA. The first thing I ever bought.
They're made of bumpers.
They are? -Yes.
Statues made of bumpers. Who thinks of that?
This is my KLM... That's is how often I flew up and down.
See?
They used to give you a house each time.
Only in Business class. -I don't fly Economy.
That's clear?
Well.
"De boer moat sels de leie hauwe." A Frisian saying.
What does it mean?
That the farmer has to hold the reins himself.
This one's also good. "Fan bûgjen frjemd."
It basically means "stubborn".
"Fan bûgjen frjemd."
Do you spend much time here? -Yes.
When we're home, we're here.
Are you ever home? -Yes.
You haven't been home for a year. -That's true.
When we're both home, we're here. We live in all the rooms.
This is from... let me see... just after Floris.
This is Nellie... Two of our dogs. We had three of them.
I had done a workshop with poetry reading. Very artistic and all.
In Heerenveen.
And my car didn't start. It was cold.
And her brother said I could sleep at his place.
Ok.
The next day I woke up and I got breakfast in bed.
I'd never had that before. From her mother.
And she was in the room.
She said "let's go to the dyke".
"I'll get some wood."
So I said "sure, I'll come to the dyke".
So we talked a bit on the dyke. Very exciting.
And very warm, from the start.
And she knew right away.
I didn't get it at first.
But I did think she was a very special woman.
A bit scary, actually.
"She's mine", you thought.
No, I didn't think that was possible.
That can't be true.
That's not possible.
You can't...
I had no plans at all, but I did think...
...you can't just...
You can't feel that at home with someone. Impossible.
That's scary.
I had to think about it for a long time, but you can't stop it.
That would be very stupid.
Yes.
He made a big impression on me. I thought he was very handsome.
Jesus, what was that at my mother's kitchen table all of a sudden?
A blond God. Totally innocent.
Right away, I thought "bloody hell".
I was rather experienced. I was a naughty girl.
It felt like I had come home.
I knew it was him, right away. Such a strange feeling.
As if I knew him from a previous life.
That's him. Over and out.
And that's how it went. We never left each other since that day.
I was attracted by the intellectual farmer.
A man with big hands, on a tractor...
...reading beautiful poetry and saying beautiful things.
Totally obsessed by theatre and poetry.
I thought it was beautiful and I felt touched by it.
He was familiar with Chet Baker, but also with Bach's cantata's.
The combination of down to earth and very poetic.
His car was always full of costume parts.
Shoes with big buckles...
Really strange things.
And I thought he was very interesting.
That's how it came about. And then he moved in.
Right away?
Yes, he had no house so he moved in with my parents and me.
I lived at home at that time.
After three months we rented a house together, here in Friesland.
He was with the Noorder Compagnie theatre company.
Floris was just being released.
And then it all started. Fame, bags of mail. A good time.
We didn't have a cent, but it was great.
Hippies having a lot of fun.
I really enjoy driving somewhere, instead of flying.
I built it myself.
I made 15 films with it, abroad.
Driving is the most fun, because it's always a big adventure.
It's a big thing and I want to park on top of the mountain, of course.
Where it's beautiful and nice.
But that's why I have my motorcycle, so I can drive around...
...to see where I can park.
So your motorcycle is included. -Yes, it's at the front.
This wallpaper fascinates me.
It's a wild little wallpaper.
Who picked it? -I did.
I saw it and I thought it would be fun.
I see a knight.
Maybe it has some psychological meaning.
The old knight, yes.
I started it because I thought it would be fun.
I didn't have a career abroad yet.
During Soldier of Orange, I had a bus and...
...afterwards I thought that if I would ever work abroad...
...then it would be handy to have one.
That's how it started. I didn't know what would happen.
It was just a gamble.
I've seen a few things coming and anticipated a bit.
Or you wanted it a lot.
I didn't give a shit. It was interesting and fun...
...but I didn't think "that has to become my career".
I thought it wasn't possible, actually.
It took me a long time to realise I was really a movie actor and...
...it just kept going.
He was still searching. He was only 25 or 26.
He was kind of the first famous movie star in the Netherlands.
We didn't know a thing. We just went to the US for fun.
Sometimes we were barefoot. You wouldn't do that anymore.
We just parked the camper in front of a huge agent's office...
Dirty, straight from the mountains. We weren't even wearing shoes.
In a filthy suit and we'd just go there.
To see if they wanted to represent him.
And that didn't work.
Didn't you have to go to parties in Los Angeles and things like that?
We never did that. No.
No, except if it was fun. If there was a reason.
We didn't do things because it's good for your career.
Or because it's important for later. Never.
Only for people we loved and who we had fun with.
How did you get out of it? -We just didn't go.
No, we just didn't do that.
During shooting of The Hitcher, I decided to...
...become more flexible in the way I worked.
Less stubborn or angry or grumpy or pig-headed.
And a bit scared, maybe.
I was always fighting against everything. That was very difficult.
A waste of energy.
RUTGER OUR HERO
He's become a lot more accessible.
He used to be considered inaccessible and fairly difficult.
And that has changed.
Are you involved with the things he does? Roles and scripts?
I'm not.
Not that I don't care, but he does what he does.
I can say that I like something or that I don't, of course.
But that doesn't make much of a difference to him.
When you're together you want the other person to be happy and...
...you have to allow them to do what they want to do in life.
You have to encourage them and give them that freedom, even if that's hard.
You have to let them go.
If you can't, you're destined to fail.
I can't live without him, but I'm almost always without him.
Is that true?
I'll do what she says.
The past 18 months...
...I've done about 8 different things.
All kinds of things.
I haven't been this busy since '87.
Can you name a few things?
Moving McAllister.
I don't know.
It's gone.
I remember two weeks ago, but not any further.
Why do you do it then?
At the beginning of my career, I already thought...
...that if I only did what I find really interesting...
...then I wouldn't exist as an actor, because I wouldn't do enough.
I wouldn't do enough to be an actor.
I do about a third for the money... let me think...
...a third for the money, a third for artistic reasons and a third for...
...new talent, interesting strange things...
I follow that line a bit.
In which category does this film, Goal, fall?
That's the category of...
...a job in...
...a reasonable job in a...
...a decent movie for children. More or less.
Something like that.
This is a very nice way to make some money.
This is Real Madrid. The football Mecca of Madrid.
And you're the coach of this team. -Yes.
How much did you know about football? -Nothing.
Still nothing.
So you arrive here and they say you're a football trainer.
And you don't know anything about it.
No, so you wonder what's in the script.
And then the director tells me to have a look at this or that.
And then you see a few matches.
You try to talk to players a bit and then...
...I know more than enough, I think.
And they want a strict coach.
In football, they want a strict coach who says: "Bloody hell, no bullshit".
So you do that. Not too sweet, not too nice.
That's how it works.
I think I get it.
The ball goes in there or in there.
And when you want to tell them something...
...you walk forward and you wait.
You always see that.
And that's it.
The hardest thing is that you have to play an authority...
...with a certain warmth.
The main thing is to achieve that for a role like this.
That's very hard.
A man like that is a bit of a priest and an army commander.
Those clubs are run like the army.
Men! We're going to...
With a lot of this.
But I want to make it exciting.
You always stay at the surface a bit.
I do it, but I stay aware.
I don't lose myself in the...
I don't forget I'm an actor. I act with the audience...
...that I'm the coach.
That's the game.
What do you have to do?
Walk alongside them or something.
And... let me see...
Well...
Having some fun. Fooling around with that camera.
A glass of wine...
This is about the beginning, about how we met.
For Soldier of Orange.
When did you record this?
About two months ago.
I was on the way home and I went to see him in Hawaii.
ERIK HAZELHOFF ROELFZEMA SOLDIER OF ORANGE
Our lives are very much connected.
We don't exist without each other, in a strange way.
Because of that movie? -Yes.
Never before did two actors, dressed in evening dress...
...arrived at a premiere, on motorcycles.
Rutger Hauer and Jeroen Krabbé did this for Soldier of Orange.
After the first showing, Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema...
...on whose autobiography the movie was based...
...introduced the cast to the audience.
First Rutger Hauer.
I just started out as an actor...
...and I didn't think I amounted to much...
...as an actor... so that I could...
...do this in a genuine way.
I doubted that very much.
I felt I had to try really hard...
...to become him rather than...
...do what I did in Turkish Delight.
That wasn't so much acting, that character was pretty much me.
This was really a role.
He helped me at many moments.
If didn't know what to do, I talked to him.
And within 15 minutes he'd say something that would help me out.
And he was always like "just do it like this".
And then I'd think he was right.
A team consisting of a man and woman... -Yes, you stop talking now.
About you now.
He's become a father to me. A friend and a father.
For the rest of my life.
But how about your own father?
He was a very exceptional and stubborn man.
And an actor, right? -And an actor.
My father had had a hard time during the war.
He was in his thirties when it started.
He was just becoming successful in theatre.
He had a certain name.
But he kind of missed his chance because the war started.
I always felt he was disappointed about how things went.
Did he witness how successful you became?
He saw a bit of it.
They were a bit afraid of...
Turkish Delight was way too nude. They didn't get that at all.
Turkish Delight just didn't exist in their lives.
Were they at the premiere?
No, they were afraid. I'm not sure why they weren't there.
I don't know if I... I don't know exactly.
It took fairly long before they realised that it was...
...fairly serious.
Yes, it's very... yes...
At the end of his life, we had one talk...
I asked him why we had never done this before.
And he said "I don't know".
And that was the goodbye. That's what happened.
That was the last time I talked to him.
It was very strange. How is it possible?
It's also a bit sad.
It's a shame, isn't it? -Yes.
But the big joke of life is...
...that when you start thinking about everything that's a shame...
...then you get very sad.
I think it's the journey, not the destination.
Yes, what you miss in life, was not your destination.
I think that's very funny...
...because I meet many people who...
...say "this was missing" and "that was missing".
And that means today isn't good enough.
And then I think "talk about a shame"!
I think I'm much more like my parents than I used to think.
The need to play.
I'm addicted to it.
Life to me is a game.
And I play a role in it.
Which role? -The role of actor.
It's never true.
It's as if you try to peel a bit of skin of...
You want to free yourself of a bit of skin, layers of DNA.
You name it. Layers of pain.
And some don't come off, but others do.
And that's a relief.
That's how you've decided you can deal with life. Or how you want to.
No, I haven't decided that.
I'm not that rational. My head always runs behind.
Just like many of my characters, I act first.
And then they think "2 times 2 = 4".
Or they start calculating or thinking.
It's a very exciting game against myself.
It's strange, but you're looking for something.
When you stop searching, it's over.
To me, almost every movie can become a master piece.
But you do need a master at the helm.
Blade Runner was very funny...
...because everything had been planned and built months in advance.
It's funny that...
...a coin can still drop.
And that's unplanned.
A coin like the pigeon... you know.
What do you mean, the pigeon?
That pigeon wasn't in the script.
While you're searching for something, you get these strange ideas or...
...these ideas come from somewhere.
They're unplanned.
And some of these coincidences, if they work well, make it very special.
There was a page of text and we got rid of it.
Three sentences and then the pigeon.
When you let it go, it flies off.
And then you don't have to say it. Visual language.
It happened to work out well.
The script is often only an indication...
...of what the movie will become.
The fact that the world thinks you have to be Spielberg...
...or that you have to win Oscars, doesn't mean anything to me.
I don't care.
If you lose your feeling for the outside world...
...and if you lose real human feelings...
...then you've chosen Hollywood and that's not good.
And I don't intend to play along with that.
Did you ever?
Well, as a person, you go through certain developments.
And then you think "couldn't I have thought of this ten years ago?"
That has to do with the phase you're in.
That you're too stupid for something.
The truth is always welcome but your mind has to be open to it.
Certain mistakes you see in your own development...
Like what, for instance? -I... don't know that.
I'm not going to tell you. Wouldn't make me more interesting.
No?
Do you want to be a mystery? -That's fine with me.
The risk is that you start to believe what's not true.
That's typical for an actor... for the outside world.
That so much hot air is blown your way that you start to think they're right.
And I've had that at times, but not for long.
What did you think? -That I'm great.
But I can't keep that up and that's not modesty.
It's in the beginning, you know...
Why can't you keep thinking you're great?
Because it's not true.
Besides, it's not important.
That's for others to decide.
Who gives a shit?
Just do your best.
It's a big relief to understand...
...that it's alright if people don't understand you.
They get you or they don't.