Jeroen Krabbé: The Life Story Behind the Dutch Master

Jeroen Krabbé has had three careers, and most people only know about one of them. The first is the acting career, which took him from Amsterdam to Hollywood, from a Dutch film about the resistance to a James Bond film, from a villain in The Fugitive to a painter in a small Dutch drama. The second is the directing career, which began with a film about a Jewish boy in the Second World War and continued with an adaptation of one of the most famous Dutch novels ever written. The third is the painting career, which began in childhood, in a house full of paintings, and which has continued for his whole life, in parallel with the acting and the directing, and which is, in his own words, the thing he does when he is not working. Three careers, one life, and the thread that connects them is a house in Amsterdam where art was not a hobby but a way of life. Krabbé grew up in that house, and he has spent eighty years — he was born in 1944, in the last year of the war — living the life it taught him: that art is work, that work is serious, and that a person can do more than one thing well if they are willing to do the work properly.

Amsterdam, a Painter Father, and a House Full of Art

Amsterdam gives 5 December 1944 as Jeroen Krabbé’s birth date, and the household he grew up in was one of the most artistic in the Netherlands. His father, Maarten Krabbé, was a well-known Dutch painter, and his mother, Margreet Reiss, was a writer and a translator. The house was full of paintings and books, and Krabbé has said that art was part of his childhood in a literal sense: he grew up looking at paintings, talking about paintings, and making paintings of his own. His brother, Tim Krabbé, became a writer and a chess player, and his son Jasper became a painter and a television presenter, which means the family’s artistic life has continued for three generations. Krabbé has three sons, and he has said his family was close despite the pressures of working in the arts. He studied at the Amsterdam Theatre School, the Toneelschool, where he trained as an actor, and the training was practical and rigorous: voice, movement, and the study of classic plays. He has said he was interested in painting from a young age, and that he still paints when he is not acting, a fact that is worth remembering, because it means the painting is not a retirement hobby but a lifelong practice. The house full of art gave him two things: a visual sense that shows in his directing, and a belief that an artist’s life is a serious one, not a frivolous one.

Soldier of Orange and The Fourth Man: the Dutch Breakthrough

Krabbé’s breakthrough as an actor came in the 1970s, in two films directed by Paul Verhoeven, the Dutch director who would later make Robocop and Basic Instinct in Hollywood. In 1977 he appeared in Soldier of Orange, playing Guus LeJeune, a young man who joins the Dutch resistance during the Second World War, in a film that was one of the most successful Dutch films ever made. The film follows a group of students in Leiden who are caught up in the war, and Guus is the one who becomes a resistance fighter, a part that required Krabbé to play a young man who is brave, reckless, and ultimately doomed. The film was a commercial success in the Netherlands, and it made Krabbé a star at home. In 1983 he appeared in The Fourth Man, also directed by Verhoeven, playing Gerard Reve, a writer who becomes involved with a mysterious woman, in a film that is a psychological thriller, full of religious imagery and dark humour. The Fourth Man was shown at festivals around the world, and it made Krabbé known outside the Netherlands for the first time. The two films are very different — one is a war epic, the other is a thriller about a writer — and the fact that Krabbé carried both showed a range that directors noticed. He was not only a leading man; he was an actor who could play a hero and a neurotic, a soldier and a writer, and the range is the reason his career lasted as long as it did.

The Vanishing, The Living Daylights, and the Move to Hollywood

In 1988, Krabbé appeared in The Vanishing, known in Dutch as Spoorloos, directed by George Sluizer, playing Rex Hofman, a man whose girlfriend disappears at a petrol station, and who spends years trying to find out what happened to her. The film is a thriller, but it is not a conventional one: the audience knows, from early on, who took the girlfriend and why, and the tension comes from watching Rex walk, knowingly, into a trap. Krabbé’s performance is built on obsession: Rex cannot let go, he cannot move on, and he will do anything, including risking his own life, to learn the truth. The film was a critical success, and it was remade in Hollywood in 1993, with Kiefer Sutherland in the role Krabbé had played. The year before The Vanishing, in 1987, Krabbé had appeared in The Living Daylights, the James Bond film starring Timothy Dalton, playing General Georgi Koskov, a Soviet general who defects to the West and who turns out to be a traitor. The part was a villain, and it put Krabbé in front of a global audience, in a film that was seen by millions of people. The move to Hollywood was not a single decision but a series of them: a Dutch film here, a Bond film there, and gradually the offers from America and Britain began to outnumber the offers from the Netherlands. Krabbé took them, but he never left Amsterdam, and he never stopped working in Dutch films, a pattern that would define the rest of his career.

The Fugitive, Immortal Beloved, and the Hollywood Villain

The 1990s brought Krabbé a run of Hollywood roles, and the parts he played there were, for the most part, villains and authority figures. In 1993 he appeared in The Fugitive, directed by Andrew Davis, playing Dr. Charles Nichols, the colleague of Harrison Ford’s Dr. Richard Kimble, who turns out to be the man behind the murder Kimble is accused of. The film was a major commercial success, earning more than 350 million dollars worldwide, and it was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Krabbé’s part was small but crucial: Nichols is the villain, and the audience has to believe that a respected doctor could be a murderer, and Krabbé played him with a calm, professional menace that made the revelation work. In 1994 he appeared in Immortal Beloved, playing Anton Schindler, the secretary and biographer of Ludwig van Beethoven, in a film about the composer’s life and his mysterious Immortal Beloved. The part was a supporting role, but it put Krabbé in a prestigious, European production, and it showed that he could play a historical figure as well as a contemporary villain. He also appeared in Ocean’s Twelve in 2004, playing Van Der Woude, a small part in a large ensemble, and in Transporter 3 in 2008, playing Leonid Vasilev, a villain in an action film. These were not leading roles, and they did not make him a star in Hollywood, but they made him a familiar face to audiences who had never seen a Dutch film, and they proved that he could work in the Hollywood system without losing the qualities that had made him famous at home.

Left Luggage, The Discovery of Heaven, and Directing

In 1998, Krabbé directed his first feature film, Left Luggage, based on the novel by Carl Friedman, about a Jewish student in Antwerp in the 1970s who takes a job as a nanny for a Hasidic family, and who learns about a world she never knew existed. The film was shown at the Berlin Film Festival, where it won prizes, and it was praised for its sensitivity and its performances. Directing was a significant step, because it meant moving from being directed to directing, from interpreting someone else’s vision to creating your own. Krabbé has said that the experience taught him a great deal about acting, because a director sees the whole film, not only one performance, and the knowledge made him a better actor. In 2001 he directed The Discovery of Heaven, an adaptation of Harry Mulisch’s novel, one of the most famous Dutch books ever written, about two friends whose lives are shaped by a mysterious, divine plan. The film was a large production by Dutch standards, and it was a commercial success in the Netherlands. Directing these films showed a different side of Krabbé: not the actor who plays villains in Hollywood, but a Dutch filmmaker who wanted to tell Dutch stories, in Dutch, for a Dutch audience. He has continued to act while directing, and the two sides of his work inform each other: acting teaches him what actors need from a director, and directing teaches him what a film needs from its actors.

Painting, Television, and the Third Career

The painting career is the one that most people do not know about, and it is the one that Krabbé himself seems to value most. He has painted throughout his life, and he has exhibited his work, and he has presented television programmes about painters, in which he talks about art with the knowledge of someone who has made it himself. The programmes are a particular kind of television: a famous actor, who is also a painter, talking about other painters, and the combination works because Krabbé knows what he is talking about. He has spoken about painting as a way of seeing the world, and about the difference between acting, where you interpret someone else’s words, and painting, where you make something from nothing. He has three sons, and his son Jasper has followed him into both painting and television, presenting programmes about art in the Netherlands. Krabbé is in his eighties, and he is still working, still acting, still painting, and still, in the best sense, a working artist. The career that began in a house full of paintings in Amsterdam, and that passed through Soldier of Orange, The Living Daylights, The Fugitive, and Left Luggage, is still going, and the most interesting thing about it is that it has never been only one thing. He is an actor, a director, and a painter, and he has been all three for his whole life, because the house he grew up in taught him that a person can do more than one thing well, if they are willing to do the work properly.

The Television Work and the Dutch Films Between Hollywood

Between the Hollywood films, Krabbé kept working in Dutch film and television, and those roles are as important to his career as the American ones. He appeared in Dutch television series and in films that never travelled outside the Netherlands, playing parts that were written for a Dutch audience, in Dutch, about Dutch life. The work was not glamorous, and it did not pay as well as Hollywood, but it kept him connected to the country and the language that had made him, and it gave him the chance to play leading roles that Hollywood would never have offered him. He also appeared in European co-productions, films made in several countries at once, playing parts that required him to work in English, in French, or in German, and the multilingual work showed a range that the Hollywood villain roles never did. The pattern of his career is consistent: a Hollywood film, then a Dutch film, then a television series, then a painting exhibition, a rhythm that kept him working and kept him interested. He has said that he never wanted to live in Los Angeles, and that Amsterdam was home, and the decision to stay is part of why his career lasted as long as it did: he did not burn out, he did not become a Hollywood casualty, and he did not lose himself in a system that swallows actors who move there. He stayed in Amsterdam, he painted, he directed, and he acted, and the combination is the reason he is still working in his eighties.

A Family of Artists: Tim, Jasper, and Three Generations

The Krabbé family is unusual in that its artistic life has continued for three generations, and the story is worth telling in full. Maarten Krabbé, Jeroen’s father, was a painter whose work is still exhibited in the Netherlands. Jeroen became an actor, a director, and a painter. His brother, Tim Krabbé, became a writer and a chess player, and his books, including The Vanishing, which was adapted into the film Jeroen starred in, are among the most famous in Dutch literature. Jeroen’s son Jasper became a painter and a television presenter, hosting programmes about art in the Netherlands, and his other sons have also worked in the arts. The family is not a dynasty in the sense of a business, but it is a family in which art was always taken seriously, and in which children were encouraged to make things. Jeroen has said that his family was close despite the pressures of working in the arts, and that the closeness came from a shared understanding: that making art is work, that it is difficult, and that it is worth doing. The three generations — Maarten, Jeroen and Tim, Jasper — are a reminder that talent is not only inherited but taught, and that a house full of paintings and books is a school in itself. Krabbé’s career is, in that sense, not only his own but his family’s, and the house in Amsterdam where he grew up is still there, in everything he does, whether he is acting in a Hollywood film, directing a Dutch one, or standing in front of a canvas, painting.

The Lift, Amsterdamned, and the Dick Maas Years

In 1983, Krabbé appeared in The Lift, known in Dutch as De Lift, directed by Dick Maas, playing Felix Adelaar, a lift mechanic who discovers that a lift in an Amsterdam office building is killing people. The film is a horror film, but it is also a satire about modern technology, and Krabbé played Felix as an ordinary man who is drawn into an extraordinary situation, a mechanic who has to become a detective in order to save lives. The film was a commercial success in the Netherlands, and it was remade in America in 2001 as The Shaft, with Krabbé’s role played by another actor. In 1986 he appeared in The Assault, known in Dutch as De Aanslag, directed by Fons Rademakers, a film about a man whose family is killed by the Nazis during the war, and who spends his life trying to understand what happened. The Assault won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, which made it one of the most acclaimed Dutch films ever made, and Krabbé’s appearance in it put him in a film that was seen around the world. In 1988 he appeared in Amsterdamned, also directed by Dick Maas, playing Eric Visser, a detective who hunts a killer in Amsterdam’s canals, in a film that is part thriller and part love letter to the city. The film is famous for a chase scene in which a speedboat races through the canals, and for a climax on a boat in the harbour, and Krabbé’s Visser is a tough, funny detective who is, in many ways, the opposite of the villains he would later play in Hollywood.

The Dick Maas films are important because they show Krabbé as a leading man in Dutch cinema, playing heroes rather than villains, and because they were commercial successes that made him a star at home. Maas was one of the most successful Dutch directors of the 1980s, and his films were known for their energy, their humour, and their spectacular set pieces, and Krabbé was his leading man in two of them. The collaboration is a reminder that Krabbé’s career was not only about art films and Hollywood villains; it was also about popular Dutch cinema, about films that people went to see for fun, and about a leading man who could carry a thriller. The Lift, The Assault, and Amsterdamned are the films that Dutch audiences remember when they think of Krabbé, and they are the reason he is a household name in the Netherlands in a way that he is not anywhere else. The actor who played a villain in The Fugitive was, at home, a hero, and the two sides of his career are both true.

The Golden Calf and the Dutch Film Prizes

The honours Krabbé has received in the Netherlands tell the story of a career that was recognised at home first. He won the Golden Calf for Best Actor, the prize given at the Netherlands Film Festival, which is the highest honour in Dutch cinema, for his work in the 1980s. The award mattered because it was not for a supporting role or for a film carried by a famous co-star; it was for a performance in which he was the centre of the story, and it proved that the breakthrough was real. A national prize, won at home, for work done at home, is the kind of honour that an actor carries with him for the rest of his life, even when Hollywood offers larger ones.

Soldier of Orange is based on the memoir of Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema, a Dutch resistance fighter who wrote about his experiences during the war, and the film’s other leading role, Erik, was played by Rutger Hauer, who would later become famous in Hollywood for Blade Runner. The film was one of the most expensive Dutch films ever made at the time, and it was a commercial success in the Netherlands, where it is still regarded as a classic. The story follows a group of students in Leiden who are caught up in the war, and who must choose between resistance, collaboration, and survival. Krabbé played Guus LeJeune, the one who becomes a resistance fighter, and the part required him to play a young man who is brave, reckless, and ultimately doomed. The film was later adapted into a musical, which has run in the Netherlands for years, a sign that the story has outgrown the film and become part of Dutch culture. Krabbé has spoken about the film with pride, and about the fact that it was the role that made him a star at home.

My Take:

The first thing I want to say about Jeroen Krabbé is that he is the most interesting actor in this batch, not because he is the most famous, but because he has had three careers and most people only know about one of them. The acting career is the one that made him famous: Soldier of Orange, The Living Daylights, The Fugitive, The Vanishing. The directing career is the one that shows what he really cares about: Left Luggage, a film about a Jewish family in Antwerp, and The Discovery of Heaven, an adaptation of one of the most famous Dutch novels ever written. The painting career is the one that he himself seems to value most: a lifelong practice, begun in a house full of paintings, continued for eighty years, and still going. Three careers, one life, and the thread that connects them is a belief that art is work, and that work is serious. That belief came from his father, Maarten Krabbé, who was a painter, and from the house in Amsterdam where he grew up, and it is the reason his career has lasted as long as it has.

Soldier of Orange is the film I would show someone who wants to understand what Krabbé was as a young actor, because Guus LeJeune is a hero, and Krabbé played him as a young man who is brave and reckless and ultimately doomed. The film was one of the most successful Dutch films ever made, and it made Krabbé a star at home, but it is not the film I would show someone who wants to understand what he became. The Vanishing is that film, because Rex Hofman is a man who cannot let go, who spends years trying to find out what happened to the woman he loved, and who walks, knowingly, into a trap. Krabbé’s performance is built on obsession, and it is one of the most unsettling performances in any thriller I have seen, because the audience knows what Rex does not, and they watch him walk toward his fate anyway. The film was remade in Hollywood, with Kiefer Sutherland in Krabbé’s role, and the remake was not as good, which is a tribute to the original and to Krabbé’s performance in it.

The Fugitive is the Hollywood role that most people remember, and I think it is worth saying why it works. Dr. Charles Nichols is the villain, but he is not a cartoon villain; he is a respected doctor, a colleague, a man who seems trustworthy, and the revelation that he is a murderer works because Krabbé played him as a professional, not as a monster. The film earned more than 350 million dollars, and it was nominated for seven Academy Awards, and Krabbé’s part, though small, was crucial to its success. The Living Daylights is a similar story: General Koskov is a villain, but he is a charming one, a man who defects to the West and who turns out to be a traitor, and Krabbé played him with a lightness that made the betrayal surprising. These are not leading roles, and they did not make him a star in Hollywood, but they made him a familiar face, and they proved that he could work in the Hollywood system without losing himself in it. He never moved to Los Angeles, he never stopped working in Dutch films, and that decision is part of why he is still working in his eighties.

Left Luggage is the film I respect most in his career, because directing is a different kind of work from acting, and it requires a different kind of courage. Krabbé directed a film about a Jewish student in Antwerp who takes a job as a nanny for a Hasidic family, a subject that is sensitive and difficult, and he did it well enough to win prizes at the Berlin Film Festival. The film is not a large one, and it did not make a lot of money, but it is a serious piece of work, and it shows that Krabbé wanted to tell Dutch stories, in Dutch, for a Dutch audience, even when Hollywood was offering him larger roles. The Discovery of Heaven was a larger undertaking, an adaptation of Harry Mulisch’s novel, and it was a commercial success in the Netherlands. These are the films that show what Krabbé really cares about, and they are the reason I think his directing career is as important as his acting career, even though fewer people know about it.

The painting is the part of his life I find most moving, and I want to be honest about why. He has painted throughout his life, and he has exhibited his work, and he has presented television programmes about painters, and the combination — a famous actor who is also a painter, talking about other painters — works because he knows what he is talking about. Painting is a way of seeing the world, and it is a way of making something from nothing, which is the opposite of acting, where you interpret someone else’s words. Krabbé has said that painting gives him a freedom that acting does not, and I believe him, because the freedom is visible in the work: he paints what he wants, when he wants, and he does not need anyone’s permission. That is a rare thing for a famous person, and it is the reason he has never become a celebrity in the conventional sense. He is an artist who is famous for his work, not for his life, and the painting is part of why.

If I have a criticism, it is that his Hollywood career never gave him a leading role, and that is a shame, because he was capable of more than the villain parts he was offered. The Fugitive and The Living Daylights used him well, but they used him as a supporting player, and the films that would have shown his full range were the Dutch ones, which most of the world never saw. That is not his fault; it is the fault of an industry that casts European actors as villains and then wonders why they do not become stars. But it is a waste, and I would like to have seen him in a major leading role in an English-language film, something that let him use the full range he showed in The Vanishing and in Soldier of Orange. He is in his eighties now, and the chance has probably passed, but the work he did in Dutch cinema is substantial, and it is the work that will be remembered in the Netherlands long after the Hollywood films are forgotten.

The family story is worth mentioning, because it is unusual and because it explains a great deal. Three generations of artists — Maarten the painter, Jeroen and Tim the actor and the writer, Jasper the painter and presenter — is not an accident. It is the result of a house in which art was taken seriously, and in which children were encouraged to make things. Krabbé has said his family was close despite the pressures of working in the arts, and the closeness came from a shared understanding that making art is work. That understanding is the thread that runs through his whole life, and it is the reason he has had three careers instead of one. He did not choose between acting, directing, and painting; he did all three, because the house he grew up in taught him that a person can do more than one thing well, if they are willing to do the work properly.

Looking at the whole picture, I think Jeroen Krabbé’s career is a story about staying home and staying true. He could have moved to Los Angeles, he could have become a Hollywood actor, and he chose not to. He stayed in Amsterdam, he painted, he directed Dutch films, and he acted in Hollywood when the right part came along. The result is a career that is longer, richer, and more interesting than it would have been if he had left, and it is a career that belongs to the Netherlands as much as it belongs to him. The boy who grew up in a house full of paintings became an actor, a director, and a painter, and he is still, in his eighties, doing all three. That is a story worth telling, and it is a story that has nothing to do with luck. It has to do with knowing who you are, and where you come from, and refusing to give either of those things up.

For anyone discovering him now, start with The Vanishing, because it is the performance that shows what he can do, and then watch Soldier of Orange, because it shows where he started. Then watch The Fugitive, because it shows what Hollywood saw in him. After that, look at his paintings, and watch one of his television programmes about art, because those are the pieces of work that show who he really is. Those four pieces, taken together, give you the full arc: the soldier, the obsessed lover, the villain, and the painter, four men who have nothing in common except the artist who played them, and the artist who played them is one of the most interesting figures in Dutch cinema.

The Dick Maas films are the ones I would point to if someone asked me what Krabbé was at home, in the Netherlands, because they show him as a leading man, playing heroes rather than villains, in films that Dutch audiences loved. The Lift is a horror film about a killer lift, and Krabbé played Felix Adelaar, a mechanic who has to become a detective to save lives, and the film was a commercial success. Amsterdamned is a thriller about a detective who hunts a killer in the canals, and Krabbé played Eric Visser, a tough, funny detective who is, in many ways, the opposite of the villains he would later play in Hollywood. The Assault won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and Krabbé appeared in it, which put him in a film that was seen around the world. These are the films that Dutch audiences remember when they think of Krabbé, and they are the reason he is a household name in the Netherlands in a way that he is not anywhere else. The actor who played a villain in The Fugitive was, at home, a hero, and the two sides of his career are both true, and both worth remembering.

The Assault deserves one more word, because winning an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film is a rare achievement, and the film is one of the most acclaimed Dutch films ever made. It tells the story of a man whose family is killed by the Nazis during the war, and who spends his life trying to understand what happened, and it is a film about memory, about guilt, and about the long shadow of the war. Krabbé’s appearance in it, in the same decade as Soldier of Orange, put him at the centre of Dutch cinema’s engagement with the Second World War, a subject that has shaped the country’s films for generations. He was born in 1944, in the last year of the war, and the war is part of his life in a way that it is not part of younger actors’ lives: he grew up in a country that had been occupied, in a city that had been hungry, and the films he made about the war were not history to him but memory. That is a serious thing, and it is the reason his performances in those films have a weight that other actors’ do not. He was not pretending to understand the war; he had lived in its aftermath, and the audience could tell.

The speedboat chase in Amsterdamned is the last thing I want to mention, because it is a reminder that Krabbé’s career was not only about art films and serious dramas, but also about popular cinema, about films that people went to see for fun. The chase, in which a speedboat races through the canals of Amsterdam, is one of the most famous sequences in Dutch cinema, and it is a piece of pure entertainment, executed with a skill that few Dutch films had shown before. Krabbé was at the centre of it, playing a detective who is, at once, tough and funny, and the film is a reminder that he could carry a thriller as well as he could carry a drama. An actor who can do both — who can play a detective in a speedboat chase and a villain in a Hollywood thriller and a painter in a television programme about art — is an actor who has earned the right to be called versatile, and Krabbé has earned it, over eighty years, in three careers, in a house full of paintings in Amsterdam.

Frequently Asked Questions

What films made Jeroen Krabbé famous in the Netherlands?

Soldier of Orange in 1977, directed by Paul Verhoeven, in which he played Guus LeJeune, a resistance fighter, and The Fourth Man in 1983, also directed by Verhoeven, in which he played the writer Gerard Reve. Both films made him a star at home.

Who did Jeroen Krabbé play in The Living Daylights?

He played General Georgi Koskov, a Soviet general who defects to the West and turns out to be a traitor, in the 1987 James Bond film starring Timothy Dalton. The part put him in front of a global audience.

What role did Jeroen Krabbé play in The Fugitive?

He played Dr. Charles Nichols, the colleague of Harrison Ford’s Dr. Richard Kimble, who turns out to be the man behind the murder Kimble is accused of. The Fugitive earned more than 350 million dollars worldwide and was nominated for seven Academy Awards.

Did Jeroen Krabbé direct any films?

Yes, he directed Left Luggage in 1998, about a Jewish student who works as a nanny for a Hasidic family in Antwerp, which won prizes at the Berlin Film Festival, and The Discovery of Heaven in 2001, an adaptation of Harry Mulisch’s novel.

Is Jeroen Krabbé also a painter?

Yes, he has painted throughout his life, has exhibited his work, and has presented television programmes about painters in the Netherlands. His father, Maarten Krabbé, was a well-known Dutch painter, and his son Jasper is also a painter and television presenter.

Tim Krabbé is Jeroen’s brother, a writer and chess player whose books include The Vanishing, which was adapted into the 1988 film Spoorloos starring Jeroen. The Krabbé family’s artistic life has continued for three generations.