JOOSJE DUK TALKS HAPPY ENDING

Interviewed by Culture Coast Talks editor Daniel John. Interview transcripts might have been edited for length and clarity.

Before writing and directing your own films, you were already an actress, debuting in a children’s television series fifteen years old. Did you always know you wanted to write and direct even at that point?

I remember having so much fun on my first film set when I was fifteen and being very interested in everyone’s job on set but I wasn’t at all thinking of myself in any of those other positions yet, other than acting. Maybe this subconsciously had to do with the fact that I hadn’t seen any women in the role of writer and director, or maybe I was just having so much fun acting that I wasn’t even considering other options but as I acted in more and more projects, I noticed that my interest would often pivot to how the script was written, or the way the director was working, or how the film ended up being edited. After acting in a several student films in college at New York University, I decided to try to write and direct my own short film, and that’s when I fully fell in love with filmmaking.

It was only a couple of years after your acting-debut you moved to New York to study. What made you go to N.Y. to study film there rather than in the Netherlands?

Initially I wanted to study in New York because of the liberal arts curriculum in which you can do a combination of several studies, instead of having to choose only one. I was very interested in acting, but I also liked journalism, law, fashion and mathematics, truly a mix of everything! After my first year at NYU I decided to focus on acting and journalism, after which I found my true passion in filmmaking because it combines the best of both worlds in my opinion, the creativity of acting, as well as the societal element of journalism. I loved being in control of the types of stories I wanted to tell, while still working in a creative field. I look back at that time very fondly, especially because I don’t know if I had ended up becoming a filmmaker without my journey at NYU.

You’ve found audiences before, with festival runs and millions of YouTube views, but a Netflix original lands differently. How does it feel to see your film in the global Top Ten on there?

It’s truly surreal and incredible, and I’m so grateful to receive messages from all over the world from people who have connected with the film, who feel seen and understood because of the story, as well as inspired to communicate more about sex in their own lives. At the same time, it also feels quite abstract. These numbers are amazing, but it’s not like I get to talk to all the people who watch the film, see how they respond to it in their living room, and have a conversation about it with them. So every time I receive a message I get excited, because that’s what makes it feel real.

'Happy Ending' opens with a woman faking an orgasm, and more fake orgasms follow. It made me think about rom-com tropes, though often aimed at women, they still tend to present sex through that male lens of "sex happens, sex good". What inspired you to center a film on the female orgasm, and explore this idea that a woman’s real fantasy might simply be taking a moment to talk of what actually needs to happen to get it?

First of all, thank you for this wonderful observation! A few years ago during the pandemic I was watching a lot of romcoms as a distraction from real life, and I loved escaping into the world of romcoms. But the more I watched, the more I realised how disconnected I felt to the way sex was depicted in those movies, and what a shame that was, because a lot of young people look at those films and think that’s how sex should be, when in reality it’s not like that at all. So I felt inspired to create a film that lives in that lovely, colourful romcom world, but then has a more nuanced and authentic approach at depicting sex scenes and conversations about sex. I thought it would be exciting to get the romcom audience on board, and then show them something they weren’t expecting, and hopefully make them look at communication about sex in a new way.

How did you go about finding your Luna and Mink. What made them so, eventually, right for each other?

A lot of wonderful actors came into the audition room and we paired up actors that we were interested in seeing together, some of whom we paired with multiple others in several rounds so that we could look at various options. The audition scene was the scene in which Luna and Mink have dinner and the idea for a threesome comes up, when Gaite Jansen and Martijn Lakemeier auditioned together, they just elevated the scene to another level and it immediately felt like a real couple having an awkward conversation about a threesome. Suddenly I was nervous watching where the scene would go, even though I had written it and of course knew exactly what was happening. To me that was a great sign that they were perfect for the roles of Luna and Mink.

Of course, there is so much amazing talent here in Europe and ‘Happy Ending’ is very much an example of that. But to play around with the idea of you continuing to explore this genre on the other side of the ocean, maybe one set in New York, who would be some actors you'd love to match up on screen?

That’s a very exciting question to think about! Two actors who I admire and who I was very lucky to attend NYU with are AnnaSophia Robb and Rachel Hilson. I would love to see them together in a movie. Two other current favourite actors of mine are Ayo Edebiri and Paul Mescal. I would be very excited to see them in a New York love story together.