Jonas Smulders

Jonas played lead roles in the features Paradise Drifters (2020) which earned him a Dutch Academy Award nomination and premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Amazon’s The East (2020) by Jim Taihuttu opposite Marwan Kenzari (Aladdin) portraying the Indonesian War of Independence in 1946 and the first Dutch Netflix Original Film Forever Rich (2021) by Dutch Academy Award winner Shady El-Hamus telling the story of Richie’s journey to becoming the greatest rap-artist in The Netherlands. Jonas also stars in Crypto Boy (2023), another Shady El-Hamus' Netflix feature, and he played the lead role in Luka (2023) alongside Geraldine Chaplin, which made its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. More recently, he appeared in the TV movie Venus and the Netflix film Ferry 2 (2024), the latest installment in the popular Undercover (2024) franchise.

Smulders’ career took off when he starred in Cowboys Janken ook (2013) by Mees Meijnenburg which screened at Berlinale, Jongens (2014) which screened at various international film festivals, Ketamine (2014) by Rogier Hesp, the film adaptation of the Dutch bestseller Ventoux (2015) and Een Goed Leven (2015). 

Jonas starred in several television series, such as Brasserie Valentijn (2016), Zenith (2017-2022), the TV-drama Hollands Hoop (2017-2020) and Doodstil (2021) which is a spin-off of the successful crime drama Penoza. 

His time spent on film sets has not only deepened his passion for acting but has also ignited his desire to venture into writing and directing. In 2017, he successfully added a directorial credit to his name with the film Tex. In the previous year, Jonas premiered two of his short films, Primus and Obesk, at the prestigious Netherlands Film Festival. His long-term ambition is to seamlessly blend his roles as an actor and director throughout his career.