‘I just wrote what came to mind, and a book came out of it’
Inge Ipenburg may have made history as Martine Hafkamp in GTST, but she herself is already a few books further. Literally, because she has reinvented herself as a writer. In conversation with Glamial she explains how this childhood dream finally came true.
Game and story
“As a child I already knew what I wanted to do when I grew up,” Inge shares. “Playing theater and writing books. Before I could read a letter, I was ‘reading’ to the other children in the kindergarten class. I made up the story myself as I turned the pages every now and then.” So acting and making up stories was part of it at a young age, she looks back.
World famous in the Netherlands
After the cabaret academy, a long period followed in which the actress made her way little by little. “In anonymity I followed the path of gradualism, of course longing for recognition,” she now says. And then suddenly there was GTST. “I was in my early 30s and everything changed. I became world famous in the Netherlands. Did it feel like recognition? Maybe for a moment, but I soon realized that it was recognition, not recognition. Actors who I thought were bad were hoisted on the shield just as hard.”
Inge is mainly known to the general public as Martine Hafkamp, she realizes. “When I die, it will say in the newspaper: ‘Martine Hafkamp has died, finally’.”
However, that fame did not appear to work in Inge’s favor. She noticed that soap actors were quite looked down upon. She also states: “Interesting roles for men in their late fifties appear to be multiplying, while for women they are declining at the same pace.”
Things have changed
After this she worked behind the scenes for a while, but she could not express her creative potential here. And then suddenly a very great opportunity presented itself: “Years earlier I had been approached by a publishing house. I then wrote columns for Glamial and an editor was so enthusiastic about it that she asked if I wanted to write a book.”
“I decided that everything depended on that,” Inge shares. “It had to be a high-quality literary masterpiece, because I was certainly not an abandoned soap star who had to write a book if necessary. Oil stupidity, because wanting to prove something gets in the way of a good story.”
Bingo!
The big change came in 2011, when la Ipenburg was asked to chair the jury of De Gouden Strop, a literary prize for exciting Dutch novels. “I started reading a lot of exciting books and bingo! Something happened in my head. As if I had found a clothesline to hang my stories on, without the need to be pretentious. I just wrote what came to mind. A book came out of that and that was my debut: The dish.”
“When The Dish was finished, I felt like I was in love with seven men at once. I walked on clouds for two weeks. The hatch that opened never closed again. I started doing what I dreamed of as a child: writing.”
Although Inge has not completely stopped acting, her happiness no longer depends on it, she reveals. “If things had turned out differently, I might never have written that first book. And writing, just like acting, makes me happy.”
This article is part of an interview with Inge Ipenburg from the latest Glamial. This is now in stores!
Interview: Fleur Baxmeier | Image: NL Image
