Tatjana, the woman famous for moaning ‘neighbour, what are you doing now?!’, has little regard for modern film set habits. She leaves no room for any misunderstanding: “Intimacy coordinator? Fuck you!”
One of the most famous words in Dutch film history came from Tatjana Simic: ‘Neighbor, what are you doing now?!’ In Flodder, that sultry scene grew into a cult moment that has haunted her for decades. The woman from that legendary sex scene has little regard for the modern set rules.
Coordinator
Nowadays, so-called intimacy coordinators are increasingly present on film sets: people who supervise intimate scenes and make clear agreements in advance about boundaries, touching and what actors find comfortable and what they don’t find comfortable. That role mainly gained momentum after the #MeToo discussion.
The role of those coordinators? They must prevent actors from feeling pressured or saying afterwards that certain scenes went beyond their limits. For Tatjana it all sounds a bit too much like the modern manual for something that used to happen naturally, according to her.
‘Fuck off!’
Tatjana will soon make her comeback in the Flodder revival and is annoyed by the contemporary way of filming. “That must have taken some getting used to, suddenly having an intimacy coordinator on set,” it explains A.D her for.
She then shouts: “Intimacy coordinator? Fuck it! If someone suddenly stands between them with a candle, doesn’t all spontaneity disappear from such a scene? I understand it for young people, but I’m a grown woman and I now know how it works. So don’t touch me!”
No woke
After a long time of hesitation, Tatjana makes her comeback and she doesn’t feel like doing woke stuff, she says. “I don’t like that woke thing, for God’s sake, act normal! That’s what I demanded from the makers. Let’s have a bit more of the old school.”
She continues: “You’re hardly allowed to do anything these days. Kees isn’t like that and Flodder isn’t like that at all. And I can assure you that it turned out spicier and spicier than most current series.”
Two to three years
Tatjana says she doubted her comeback in Flodder for two to three years. “It’s almost thirty years later, I no longer live in the Netherlands and I don’t feel like playing some chick at the age of 62. And is the audience waiting for me?”
Producer Jeroen Koopman eventually flew back and forth to Monte Carlo for her a few times. “Jeroen’s perseverance and an idea from my partner Lex to give the character Kees a funny twist were decisive.”
