Meet Dutch actress Sigrid ten Napel (right). You may not recognize her yet, but she just stole our hearts as the golden-haired teen crush of protagonist Ayoub in Prince – the modern-day, housing-project fairy tale directed by Sam De Jong and produced by VICE Films. And she’s already getting buzz back home. Having landed her first job in 08 in the Dutch film Atlantis, 22-year-old Sigrid was later nominated for the Best Leading Actress award at the Netherlands Film Festival for her role in another teen love story, Summer.
Sigrid’s co-star, model Olivia Lonsdale, is also receiving acclaim for her Prince performance, as Ayoub’s half-sister. If you’re up on Dutch rap, you might know her from the viral video for Ronnie Flex and Lil Kleine’s hometown hit “Drank en Drugs.” Youth, rebellion and growing up are all recurring themes in the girls’ lives, both in the movie and IRL. So we met up to talk designer clothes, learning how to smoke and the illusion of “coming of age.”
Where did you guys hang out when you were the age of the kids in Prince?
Sigrid: Nowhere! I was a total geek! I went to acting school and that really was my only hang-out spot. I also walked down the streets of Rotterdam a lot, but that was only because high school was there and I had to get to and from home. My first jobs as an actress started coming in at the age of 16, and most of them were in Amsterdam. That’s when I first discovered the big outside world – and with it came clubbing.
Olivia: I was kind of bad in high school. In my class, I was the first person who smoked, and I would teach anyone who was interested how to inhale. I mean, everyone would take a puff and blow the smoke right out – not okay. Also, I would skip school on the regular. We would just go hang out in a park, getting high. There were nights when we would get some Breezers and just sit around outside, and things would get stolen every now and then – a wallet, a camera, a girlfriend… It makes me uncomfortable to even think about those nights.
Have you grown up a little since then?
Sigrid: In some ways, yes. When you reach a certain point where you realize what you want to achieve in life, you just really need to focus. That doesn’t mean I lost my sense of fantasy, creativity or open mindedness, though.
Olivia: No, never.
No? You never think to yourself, shit, I’ve gotten to old to do this or that?
Olivia: I do!
Sigrid: Whenever I do something, it happens in the heat of the moment and I never attach any value judgements to it. If it makes me happy at that time, that doesn’t change afterwards. If I fall in love with someone and that someone turns out to be a total jerk, I can’t deny I fell in love with that person later!
The boys in the movie, the main character Ayoud for one, obsess over scooters and designer clothes. Did you have any status symbols back in the day?
Olivia: I only briefly went through that period of designer clothes that everyone seems to have had. It was during the last year of elementary school. After that I went to a high school where it wasn’t cool to think about those things at all. So at an early age I found myself in an environment where it was okay to wear whatever you wanted. You were only considered cool if you were yourself. I never wanted a scooter anyway – I just really love riding my bike!
Sigrid: My parents asked me if I wanted a scooter multiple times, because my high school was quite far from home. I just didn’t really want one. For a girl coming from a small village I wore pretty unusual clothes. The students at the high school I went to where mostly kids from rich families. For a little while I tried blending in – wearing polos and sweaters with huge DKNY logos – but pretty soon I realized it still didn’t make me one of them. After that I just decided to be myself, something that got accepted pretty soon. If you accept yourself just the way you are, people will do the same eventually.
Credits
Text Sander van Dalsum
Photography Sophie Hemels (Francis Morris Morrison)