Marian Mudder states that Piet Römer, Thijs Römer’s grandfather, was also not of good behavior. She was bothered by him in 1995 on the set of Baantjer. “I really had to cry.”
His grandson Thijs Römer has now almost been written off due to sexual offenses involving underage girls, but his grandfather Piet Römer, who died eleven and a half years ago, was also no sweetheart, according to actress Marian Mudder. She worked with him for years in the popular RTL 4 series Baantjer. And that was no fun.
Intimidating Pete
Piet was ‘complicated, compelling and intimidating’, Marian agrees in an interview with NPO Radio 1. After the first season in 1995, she was crying on her bike home. “That was after the last episode of the first season. Then I got a bouquet of flowers. And then I was crying on my bike home because I thought it was horrible.”
It was horrible to work with Piet, according to Marian. “Piet was very flammable and I think he just hated me in the first season. That he didn’t like me. Why? No idea.”
Testosterone
Why didn’t Marian just quit Baantjer? “I had thought about that carefully, because I thought: I have already left the Medical Center. I also know that I was not grateful for that at the time. I thought: if I do that again, I can shake it off. There has to be bread on the table.”
Marian tried to adapt to Piet’s behavior. “I thought: I have to learn to deal with these difficult people. Of course, I was incredibly intimidated by all that testosterone on set. (…) In the first season he could grumble a lot if I misspoke.”
Not a nice atmosphere
By the way, Marian only had problems with Piet for one season. “The second season, when I had prepared myself: I’m just going to deal with this, I have to learn this, then the first day of shooting… He had probably seen the episodes and thought: oh, she does that quite well. Then he stood with his arms wide: ‘Hey, red guy.’”
And then? “He held me in my arms and things have been okay between us ever since. After that he was actually quite sweet to me. I got along very well with him after that. So I personally never had any problems with him again. That does not change the fact that he was a fierce person on the set, which often meant that the atmosphere was not that nice.”
Fragment
Marian about Piet: