Jort Kelder is absolutely not happy when Art Rooijakkers confronts him with his learned accent in his program. He turns his back on him: “I don’t feel like doing this.”
Art Rooijakkers entered his program last night Rooijakkers on the Floor visit Jort Kelder on the island of Terschelling. While collecting oysters, Art brings the conversation to Jort’s acquired cockroach accent. “When did you actually become a poop?” he asks him pointedly.
Cocker Jort
Jort’s first reaction is a small lie: “Well, I always was.”
Art surprised: “At your house you were not.”
Jort uncomfortably: “I would have preferred you to pick an oyster, sir.”
Art: “But I prefer an answer to the question when you became a poop.”
Jort: “Yes, but you are not entitled to all the answers, are you?”
Art: “Yes, but to this question.”
White pants
Jort then pretends he is not acting a cock. “Cock? Late high school or something? But dude, you know, that’s also a misconception… Yes, that might look like this when you’re standing in the Wadden Sea with white trousers. But I don’t belong or anything. I am not from the hockey clubs or from the choir or anything.”
Art: “Did you ever start talking the way you talk now or did you speak with that accent at home?”
Oops, that is a very sensitive string, we remember from the interview that Jort gave in 2018 to Plastic.
Jort answers Art: “No, I do have old recordings that… No, no, not at all, no.”
Art: “Does that wear off or is there a moment when you wake up in the morning?”
Then George walks away. “Yeah, stop it dude. I don’t feel like it, come.”
Strange dialect
Art insists: “That you think: I now say refrigerator instead of refrigerator.”
Jort: “Well, that was a bit because of How Heurt It Actually. At our house they said fridge yes. I think I speak fairly neutrally. You may say that I speak very neatly, but I think that’s not too bad. But to be honest, I think that’s also a condition in our work. I also think that newsreaders speak with the most strange dialects… I don’t like that. I want it to be as neutral as possible.”
Art: “And this is neutral, the way you speak?”
Jort: “Ehmm, yes, I think so, yes. I think you’re doing a good job, too. I hear that Brabant dung accent of yours, I don’t hear that anymore. (…) You are all asking difficult questions about my youth, that is all allowed, but picking oysters is no fun.”
Deny origin
Why does this strike such a sensitive chord with Jort? From that interview at Kunststof we know that Jort does not like it when people point out to him that he somewhat denies his origins. For example, the biography on his own website stated for years that he was born in Finland. Why doesn’t he honestly say that he was born in Gouda?
Jort at the time, in 2018: “That Gouda is in your passport, but I have actually only been in an incubator in Gouda, so to say that I have very warm ties with Gouda… I have nothing to do with Gouda. I don’t feel anything about it.”
And why does he claim – to this day – that he was born in 1969 instead of 1964? “I think 1969 is a better date than 1964. I lied about my age for a long time when I became famous in the nineties, but at a certain point you can’t keep that up.”
Presenter Jellie Brouwer: “I think it’s all very childish, right?”
posh ‘r’
When Jellie brings up Jort’s accent, the conversation gets awkward. “Did you always talk like that with that ‘r’? Your parents don’t talk like that, do they?”
Jort: “No, at one point I thought: if you’re posh, you can earn twice as much, let me do that.”
Jellie: “Did you think of that too?”
Jort: “No, I am joking a bit now, but…”
Jellie: “No, I don’t think you’re joking.”
Jort: “No, it is the environment in which you work.”
Jellie: “When did that ‘r’ come in?”
Jort: “I think in my early twenties, teenager, eighteen, nineteen years old. If you are going to study.”
Old Beijerland
Jellie notes that Jort just grew up in Oud-Beijerland. Jort reluctantly confesses: “That’s the sausage of all worlds, especially in pronunciation. But shall we talk about something or not?”
Jellie: “You go to college and then you hear those others talking who come from other parts of the country and you realize: I don’t talk like that? And then you thought…”
Jort: “No, no, no, I didn’t think of that. You’re thinking it’s all made up. Things just happen.”
Can we just pick oysters again?