Richard Groenendijk has been asked to make a New Year’s Eve conference for television, but has declined. Why? “If you get offended there, you will pay for the damage years later.”
Despite his extroverted appearance, Richard Groenendijk says he suffers from a lot of insecurity. Not many people will expect that from him. “That is of course not the case with most artists, because we all perform on stage with a lot of bravado. But I think it is precisely that uncertainty that makes the performances a success.”
Shooting target
Sometimes that uncertainty can be a hindrance, says Richard in the Weekend. “Yes, that does happen. For example, I was once asked vaguely and carefully whether I would like to do a New Year’s Eve conference. Then I immediately know for one hundred percent: I am not going to do that. That is not my style.”
He continues: “I’m not into politics, I’m into social commitment. If you make a fuss about it, you’ll pay for the damage in your halls years later. Because on television you’re a target for the entire nation who thinks something of it.”
‘I dare not’
Richard wouldn’t do it for even a grand. “I wouldn’t be able to handle that at all. I think it’s so great of Peter Pannekoek and Claudia de Breij that they can and dare to do that, and have that ambition. So I’m too insecure for that, I wouldn’t do that so quickly.”
Yet he is not bothered by his uncertainty. “That fame is nothing at all. But if you really start to believe in that and have an air about you of ‘oh well, it will be fine, I’m already sold out’, then I think things are going wrong.”