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Sylvia Hoeks tells the truth about
her love of villainous roles
By Roger Paris
F
DRESS: FRANKIE (VIONA) SS18 BOOTS: THOM SOLO
resh off of her big budget Hollywood
debut in Blade Runner 2049, Dutch
actress Sylvia Hoeks will soon be wowing
audiences in The Girl in the Spider’s
Web. Veni sat down to talk about what
drives this exciting new quadrilingual
talent, and the special relish she takes in
villainous roles.
VM: According to your own definition, do you
feel like you’ve made it in Hollywood?
SH: I think you never really make it in the sense
that you are always as good as your last film.
And the funny thing is, because we are human
beings, we always search for more, so it’s never
enough. You taste the forbidden fruit in a sense
and you want more of it because it feels good
working with creative people, growing as an
artist, and it’s contagious and it feels like you
are entering sort of a secret world and you
can grow and be free and you can create and it
inspires you. And I think to have seen and felt
that world, you want more.
VM: How about that magic moment when you
got your first break.
SH: I have been so lucky and so grateful and
I have had a couple of really good breaks; the
film Duska was a Russian-Dutch production
and it was right after theater school and I was
still very young — I think 24 or 25. I won the
Dutch Oscar for that role, and it brought a lot
of recognition and it was really an art house
film. Holland is a very small country and we
are not a country of creatives: we are brought
up through teachers and doctors and lawyers.
It’s a very practical country, and acting in my
twenties allowed me to broaden my horizons
across Europe and the US.
VM: What is the most important thing to you?
SH: I think what we are all looking for, which is
love, love and recognition.
VM: What are your habits for success?
SH: I always dig for more. I love the creative
process before you go onto a film. I love to go
and dig into documentaries, just go online and
click on YouTube videos and you are in a totally
different world. I love to go after a character
and really feel that transformation and feed
that transformation and find my answer to
the questions that I have. And I think the root
of why I am an actor is all the questions I had
as a child. It’s a drive to get answers to those
questions; it’s not about money at all. I am not
going to do a part for the money.
VM: What else from childhood helps drive your
career?
SH: When I meet a person, I look at their body
language and how they present themselves
instead of the words they say. Once a neighbor
dropped by and began chatting away like a
crazy person, pretending to be very happy. A
week later we got the news that somebody in
her family had died. I think I felt that there
was this really deep sadness in her eyes and
she tried to mask that and lighten her mood,
and I think that is the one thing that is the root
of everything I do: what really drives us and
touches us. In the end what I am an actress for
is to make people feel something, and feel in
their heart what they should work at to make
themselves happy, and what do they need to
reflect on as a human being.
VM: What are you working on now?
SH: I am going to play in the new Girl With the
Dragon Tattoo film, The Girl in the Spider’s Web.
It’s another evil character, which is so much
fun. I don’t want to only play evil characters,
but I think now that I have kind of tasted the
forbidden fruit, I kind of want to go on with
that thing.
VM: There’s that metaphor again.
SH: Yes, what I mean with forbidden fruit is
that people are so well adjusted to society
that we become robots and too well adjusted
and never tend to be vulnerable, and we only
look at each other’s social media and we post
only our most positive outlook on the world
and ourselves. So it’s not very interesting, and
what I mean by the forbidden fruit is that I
am looking for the vulnerability and ugliness
inside of a person that creates an interesting
character.
VM: Is there something you’d like to share
about yourself that people don’t know?
SH: I am happy about the path that we are
now walking on as women supporting each
other more, being less afraid of standing in
another person’s shadow. Because I think there
is a misperception that if your friend is really
beautiful, funny or intelligent that you can’t
be. I don’t know if it’s been since the beginning
of time, but I think women are so protective
and maybe tend to look at other women as a
potential danger or competition or something.
But we are in a different time in which women
have careers, and I think as with Greta Gerwig,
who made the film Ladybird, and the women
that made Big Little Lies, there’s a movement
that is starting now where women get the
opportunity to connect and join forces and
create something together.
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