DH: So Rafaël, where are you from?
RR: I’m from Amsterdam. But I’m half Brazilian.

DH: Dutch-Brazilian… sounds like an interesting story.
RR: It is. My mother and father have very different backgrounds.
My father grew up in a very strict religious farmer’s family. Calvinists. Just to give you an idea: He has 15 brothers and sisters.

DH: Your grandparents had 16 children?
RR: Yes. Every child is a gift from God, so you don’t waste time. They never waste time. They either work or pray, nothing in between. The only Bible they read is a 17th century Dutch translation, a version from the days of Rembrandt. TV or radio are not allowed. Prayer 8 times a day, chapters from the bible after every meal. Just work and the bible. It’s a very rational and responsible religion. You don’t just follow the church, you study the Bible yourself.

DH: And your father is very religious as well?
RR: No, not any more. He grew up believing every word of the bible, but at the age of 16 he started having doubts. The minister would prove the existence of God by quoting the bible. This did not make sense to my father. So he thought about it for a long time and finally told his father. It was a big crisis, they didn’t talk to each other for a year. After that about half of his brothers and sisters followed. For my grandparents, this is their big failure in life.
And on top of that their son did not become a farmer. He went to art school to become a painter!

DH: A Dutch painter… And your mother?
RR: My mother is a completely different story. She’s from Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, the most beautiful city in the world. Her grandfather was the president of Brazil in the 60′s. Actually more of a dictator.

DH: What’s his name?
RR: Humberto Castello Branco. We have Brazilian money with his face on it.

DH: So how did he become dictator/president?
RR: Brazil was kind of a mess, the government was very corrupt and the economy was going down fast. So the army decided to take charge of the country, and Castello Branco was the face of this new government. Definitely more dictator than president. The days of the cold war… They were backed by the US, to make sure Brazil would not turn communist. My mother always insists he was a good dictator. My Brazilian family is not that rich so I don’t think he was very corrupt. Only 100 dissidents went missing in his term…

DH: How long was he in office?
RR: He was president from ’60 to ’64.

DH: What are your memories of him?
RR: I know he never touched any alcohol. All his meetings people had to drink fruit juice. And I remember this photo of him in a cool suit and 3 generals with sunglasses behind him. I remember this strange expression on his face. But I never met him, he died before i was born. He died in a mysterious plane crash in ’68. Nobody’s sure if it was a political act. But recently they discovered that just before the crash he was preparing a big speech critical of the government that came after him.

DH: What impact did all this have on your mother?
RR: As a child it was all very nice, she met celebrities and spent her time in great places. She met Walt Disney and Mick Jagger, lived in the US for a while, travelled Europe, French tutor, a very privileged life. But her father was very strict. He was the son of the president, and he was to have an army career. He wanted to be an architect. This was out of the question. My mother studied architecture and in a way she was doing what he had always wanted to do. She was his favorite, which was very difficult, he was a control freak. So she escaped to Europe.

DH: Where she met your father…
RR: No actually they met in Brazil. My father was travelling through South America and he met my mother on the beach in Rio. They had a good time and they stayed in touch. My mother moved to Paris to work as a fashion journalist for a Brazilian newspaper. And so they saw each other all the time and my mother was very charmed by Holland. Very liberal, the 70s in Holland.

DH: What do these two opposite backgrounds mean to you?
RR: What it means? Like interpreting a dream? I don’t want to speculate which side of me comes from where. It does mean that I had a lot of different impressions from an early age.

DH: And what is the most important lesson you learned from them?
RR: Don’t romanticize history.