Paul de Leeuw regrets that he never really broke through as an actor. He thinks he is not considered good enough. “I was never asked to join Flikken Rotterdam. Not even as a corpse.”
For years, Paul de Leeuw made frantic attempts to break through as an actor, but he was never really taken seriously in that role. “I finally accepted that. After the rejection of the drama school, I was already past that point,” says the NPO presenter in the podcast Young Years by interviewer Ernst-Jan Pfauth.
Paul unsure
Paul has the feeling that excuses are often used to disguise that he is not considered a strong actor. “I then stayed with Antonie Kamerling for De Kleine Blond Dood. He played that lead role wonderfully. Jean van de Velde said: ‘I would rather have an unknown person play that role than a well-known person.’”
That didn’t work for Paul. “Then I think to myself: of course he thought that I couldn’t act well either. That will always be in the back of your mind.”
Cops Rotterdam
Even a police series like Flikken Rotterdam has never knocked on Paul’s door. “I mean: Flikken Rotterdam is a series about Rotterdam, I’m a Rotterdammer and I haven’t even been asked to be a corpse yet. Then you think: yes, then they indeed think that I can’t act after all.”
It is what it is, says Paul. “Everything I do in acting, I always go with my heels over the ditch according to the reviews. I don’t like that a bit, because if the audience likes it and the halls are full, it doesn’t matter much, but with that acting I do feel that it didn’t work out well.”
Frustration
Does Paul feel frustration about that now that his retirement is approaching? “There was never any frustration,” he explains.
The presenter did have quiet hope for a long time, but Paul has also let that go. “That leniency has come in the last ten or fifteen years.”
Update 4.10 pm
Also read: Paul de Leeuw asked for Flikken Rotterdam: ‘He said no!’
Paul in the podcast Young Years: