Halina, take a good look at Sophie. What do you think bothers her when she looks in the mirror?

‘Oh, I really don’t know. You have a beautiful head, Sophie! So symmetrical, soft and sexy. But maybe you find those wrinkles above your eyes annoying?

Sophie: “It varies quite a bit. When I was half burnout and looking at my face, I often wondered if it would ever be okay. My whole aura was gone. I was also still on vacation with a cosmetic doctor and cried: holy fuck dude, is there anything so I’ll ever return? And when I look at myself now, in the reflection of the car window, for example, I see quite a lot of lines that are not there in my mind. But that doesn’t keep me up at night, mind you. I do find it amusing to note how difficult this question is. I also came across it in my program: it’s very subjective how everyone experiences their appearance.’

What do you think Halina is struggling with?

‘Ehm… Maybe under her eyes she could be a little tired?

Halina: “Huh what? Tired under my eyes! Haha. No, I’m more concerned with the fact that I can have a very intense look. My ideal image is a blank canvas sweety peachy face, but sometimes I see a weird shrew. I find that hard aspect of my face really difficult at times. I have an eternal fetish to be girly.’

The child woman.

Halina: “Yes. That’s what I wanted since I was 4; I preferred just walking around in boarding school dresses.’

Sophie: “That was totally different with me. My mother had to speak to me really sternly if I wanted to comb my hair at least once a week. I wasn’t comfortable walking around with a bird’s nest on my head.

You ended up taking botox, Halina. Which shortcoming did you address first?

‘This here (points to line between nose and corner of mouth, ed.) I’ve had a groove there since I was 20 years old. I had that filled in. And I liked it immediately. My face immediately softened.’

Do you already have a treatment on your wish list, Sophie?

‘Not at the moment no. But it is a subject that fascinates me. Why does one person suffer from a small blemish and another who conforms much less to the classic ideal of beauty is just fine in his skin? Why is the world on fire when we suspect someone has had something done? While botox is already much more widespread than I thought. That brings me back to the question of what it’s going to do to the beauty ideal and to the world.

Halina, when you were in the treatment chair, did you have any incriminating thoughts, such as that it didn’t fit your worldview?

‘Yes, very much so. I was also reminded of my mother, who raised me as Sophie might be: appearance is of no importance. It doesn’t matter that you have long armpit hair or that your breasts are droopy, because you are unique and you are allowed to be there.’

So what made you decide to go on botox anyway?

Halina: ‘Um, because it was also kind of half recommended to me. Not in the stage world by the way, but in the film world it was suggested to me once by a director. Not literally, but it was said, ‘You play very well, only you have a bit of a hard face towards others.’ They thought that was a shame and would prefer to stick my talent on someone with a Romy Schneider-like head. Well I never thought it curtailed my career – I always believed in my talent – but I found that I also found it troublesome that my head was limiting me. In the end, I didn’t do it to please that director, mind you. I was raised too lovingly for that. If you have a hole to fill out of a deep-seated insecurity and think you can compensate with fat breasts or all kinds of surgery, it’s different. Then there is a greater risk of slipping into it, as with any addiction. Another will snort cocaine because he is too insecure. But with me, it wasn’t.

So why did you do it?

Halina: “For myself. I just really like it, I can enjoy it. Just like I can immensely enjoy buying a lot of makeup, or a Rolex, or an overly expensive dress. I’m ashamed of that too, because I understand how ridiculous that is – and yet it makes me happy.

Sophie: “It’s funny you should say that. I spoke for my program with clinical psychologist Liesbeth Woertman, who says that people who undergo cosmetic surgery often say they are doing it for themselves, yet that is not the case. After all, your appearance, by definition, has to do with what others think of you. On your own, your looks don’t matter.’

Halina: “Of course, it’s all perception. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do it. It’s just a Calvinistic, biblical, outdated view that you shouldn’t do that. I find that sad. If I buy an awesome dress in my spare time or just before a performance I smear a generous amount of La Prairie cream on my head because I can afford it, it will not affect my core. The same is true for botox. I don’t see any harm in it. I see it as celebrating life.

Sophie: “I’m not judging you. But I also notice that you and all the clinics talk very easily about wrinkles that can be removed. The focus is increasingly on that appearance. And when I think of my daughter, I don’t like this development at all. My daughter asked me the other day, “Do I have wrinkles, too? She wanted that one badly. I thought: I hope it stays that way. I hope you want them!

Halina: “Yes, I get that. I also think it’s terrible that more and more 18-year-old girls are getting lip augmentation. In a utopian, non-dual world, appearance would also not be an issue. But we don’t live in the Efteling, we live in reality. And I don’t think that because of that kind of excess I shouldn’t use botox to soften my face. If I had a daughter, I would have an honest conversation about what my considerations are. I don’t believe in trying very frenetically to be an example of something your daughter is never going to achieve either. Because you already know that she will never say, “Mom, I have hangtits, nipple hairs, forty million wrinkles and a tree growing out of my calf, but I love it! I am also sensitive to the fact that we women need to be young, beautiful and sexy. I’m not a rock after all! We are all susceptible to that. Unless you are enlightened and in a monastery. But I’m not.

‘What I find much worse is all the women who lie. I think that’s really terrible! That’s why I think it’s great that Sophie is making a program about it and showing all sides. I honestly struggle with Yolanthe (Sneijder-Cabau, ed.) throwing it on a completely different subject, while I think, Jesus, lord, just admit it. What’s the big deal? There is still a taboo and shame. I also hesitated, you know, to do this interview. Because I already know that from now on this will be topic No. 1 in all subsequent conversations. I think this is a socially important issue, so we need to talk about it, but it still takes courage to say what I say.

Sophie: “Yes, once.

How do you explain that taboo?

© Cornelie Tollens

Sophie: “Of course, there’s a chance that you’ll be judged for it; with some people you drop in their esteem if you use botox. Because by tinkering with your appearance, you indicate that you care about what other people think of you. And we don’t think that’s cool.

Halina: “No, you can’t be vain. Hollanders love the girl next door with fat calves on a cargo bike getting her hair blow-dried by the wind. I hate all that kind of stuff. I hate taboos. I find that vain. My great role model in this is Lena Dunham. Which shows off her full body, but at the same time does not disguise her urge to be thin. She says: I hate it and hate myself, but on the other day I find myself horny again. I am also insecure. I can sit at DWDD and think: almighty, what do I look like! And another moment I celebrate myself and give myself botox. Only to crawl on the floor again during a performance with all my cellulite. I just like being a fierce, ugly cave dweller on one side and a princess on the other. That duality is in everything on this earth and we have to show it. I don’t remember who Ronald and who Frank de Boer is, but you have that one and that other one, and I was standing around that one the other day with a group of people when he just told me he had his frown wrinkle done. I find that amusing then.

Sophie: “I’m still surprised that an ex-soccer player like Ronald de Boer does that. And I can’t help but think that he suddenly began to doubt his frown because he got a much younger girlfriend whose father is a cosmetic doctor.

Halina: “But that’s what you make of it, isn’t it? I think it’s great that he just does that and has the courage to tell it. Actually, he acknowledges that he is quite insecure. How many men do that? I find that much more powerful than all those people who shame themselves for it. Or who look at life from the dogma of civility. I can get really angry about that. Dutch people, I really hate them at times. Who cares if Ronald de Boer does anything, even if he takes tusks! Who the fuck cares? Live! I also feel a kind of kift in that. Actually a kind of self-hatred projected onto other women. And I find that abhorrent. Give each other, grant each other.

Sophie: “Sometimes I also think I’m hopelessly old-fashioned. I don’t tweet and don’t really get into all this other technology either. Now again with this cosmetic industry. Maybe I’m an arch-conservative who says, well, what in the world is going on?

Halina: “You think a kind of Ronja the robber’s daughter is pure and beautiful – and that’s fine – but when you talk smugly about ‘that Ronald de Boer,’ I don’t like that judgment. Of course, it’s terrible that we live in a culture where we think we just have to be young. And of course, there is much to be said about the image of women and how we are viewed. But I also see it as the new feminism. We wear high heels, take botox, but we do what we want. I don’t think feminism means going through life with dungarees, long armpit hair and unbotoxed.’

Sophie: ‘So do you consider someone like Beyoncé a feminist, for example? I must sound like an old Nokia again, but when I see all these clips, including with Nicki Minaj and Jennifer Lopez, I think: this is some kind of ass competition. If you call yourself a feminist when all you’re doing is trying to be the hottest chick, you’ve missed the mark somewhere, I think.

Halina: “I think your judgment says a lot about your sexuality and your acceptance of your own femininity. I really think so, if we are having an honest conversation then. I think someone like Beyoncé is making a very important noise. Namely that you may be incredibly sexy, that you may almost be a whore.

Sophie: “That you ‘should’ be sexy.

Halina: “That’s your perception! We don’t all have to sit on the couch in sweatshirts and jeans, do we?

Sophie: “It’s the same as with botox. You especially feel the freedom, I feel the pressure of industry rattling at your door. My mother was hardly concerned with her appearance because she couldn’t do anything about it anyway. That is different now. And so you get things talked about. I was at a trade show in Monaco and there I kept hearing, “You obviously don’t want those wrinkles, so we have here for you… Then I think: of course you don’t want those wrinkles? Who says so?

Do you see many botox users in your area going through?

Sophie: “Yeah, I’m not going to name names.

Halina: “I see it in my environment too. Then I say something about it too, I’m very blunt about that.’

After that first treatment, did anything come to you yourself?

Halina: “Yes, a little bit of botox in the wrinkles in my forehead. Because I find my expression on stage sometimes too much. But of course I must not go overboard; if I became an expressionless woman, I would lose my income.

Did the botox give you any concrete results? For example, has it increased your popularity among men?

Halina: “Oh no, definitely not. I am also no longer admired at all for my looks, rather less so. If you’re on television often, you’re going to get ripped off all day. And what we talked about at the beginning of the interview: men look at your appearance very differently. I had to become very thin once for a roll and then very thick again. Well, I’ve never had so much shenanigans as in those few months I was fat. While all the women were obsessed with me when I was so skinny. Even my mother asked what diet I was doing. My then-boyfriend found that thin very intense, who thought those bones were just gross. The heterosexual men I encounter are just teetotal. I have now had my hair lengthened for a performance and when a man goes through my hair and feels those attachments braids, he finds it hideous. Men really don’t have anything to do with fake. Some also say I shouldn’t talk about my botox use. You should never do that again, they say. You have to be a kind of holy virgin. I think that really is sexism. Bullshit, bullshit.

Are injectables a boost to your happiness?

Halina: “No, I’m not a retard anyway. Nothing boosts happiness except the connection you have with yourself. Everything around you can fall away, even your limbs, and even then you can experience happiness if you have a good connection with your heart. Otherwise, everything is a game and you can try anything. And especially you should not judge too harshly.’

Source: De Volkskrant, By: Nathalie Huigsloot August 31, 2015, 21:00

Sophie in de Kreukels can be seen from tonight every Tuesday at 9:35 p.m. on BNN/VARA on NPO 3