Maudy Koesnaedi was still finding her way around the set when she took a role in the TV series Si Doel Anak Sekolahan (Doel Gets an Education) in the mid-1990s. Although a longtime model and former winner of None Jakarta, the annual contest to find young, talented and attractive ambassadors for the capital, in acting terms she was as naive as her character, the pious girl-next-door Zaenab.

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Fortunately for her, it was a simpler, gentler time in show business terms than today, when soaps are produced on a  back-breaking schedule and their stars — mostly young, naive and bedazzled by visions of celebrity — are flung headfirst into the infotainment and cybersphere spotlight.

Maudy, 33, says she was given time to grow up, under the direction of actor-producer Rano Karno. At least she had time to breathe before the show — a spinoff from the book Si Doel Anak Betawi and a 1970s film adaptation, telling of a Betawi family adapting to a modern world — became a huge hit and she a household name.

“It was a very familiar set and a good place to learn. I was new to the business and they would help me out,” she says of the ensemble cast and crew. “Maybe I was a bit naive but I didn’t think about being famous at the time.”

She also had the value of higher education — majoring in French at the University of Indonesia — and her close-knit, supportive family in dealing with the fame game. They have stood her in good stead to this day. Articulate and thoughful in her answers, she brings the same qualities to her work as a sought-after emcee for events and TV shows. As a product spokeswoman, she smoothly hits all the relevant points in discussing her endorsement of Kerastase hair products and Rumah Cantik Citra, among others.

Occasionally self-deprecating, she also gives the impression of guardedness, which is a refreshing change these days when the tell-all celebrity confessional has become all-access public viewing. Only once, when looking at a recent photo of her family vacationing in Lombok, does she admit to getting emotional when she sees it. But the moment passes as soon as she finishes her sentence.

Several entertainers now host TV gossip shows — essentially reporting on their friends and colleagues, blurring the fine line between the professional and private. That’s not work that interests Maudy, although she once received an offer.

“It happened back when infotainment was really booming, but I have to feel comfortable with what I do,” she says. “I didn’t feel I was capable of doing it. There are people who can present it in a humorous way without hurting people’s feelings, I don’t think I can do that ...”

By choice, she has kept a low profile, although the early years of her marriage to Dutch businessman Erik Meijer led to an infotainment “Maudy pregnancy watch”.

“We’re both workaholics and had decided not to have a child immediately,” says Maudy, “so we came up with our standard answer, ‘Erik is pregnant but Maudy isn’t yet.’ But, yes, there are times when you are having a bad day when it isn’t so easy to give a big smile.”

She says that she has no problem with public activities being reported, but not when reporters “try to scrape together” stories with little or no facts.

The ultimate voyeuristic indignity, she feels, was when comedian Taufik Savalas was killed in a traffic accident in 2007. Infotainment reporters went to his home and were the bearers of the terrible news to his unsuspecting wife and relatives, capturing their distress on camera.

After Doel, she made the big-screen Angin Rumput Savana (Winds of the Savannah Grass) with director Garin Nugroho and then several more TV series, carefully choosing her roles — often empathetic, long-suffering characters. She stopped about three and a half years ago when it was no longer fun amid the rapid shooting schedules.

“My parts were often sad, with crying scenes. You need time to prepare, to get into it, not to have just started only for the director to say cut.”

Having Eddy, who is a beautiful, curious little boy, also inevitably brought changes. Maudy loves to travel, particularly within the country, a passion that began when she visited Sumba to make Angin Rumput Savana. With a toddler on board she no longer has that freedom, although she adds that her husband has always been wholly supportive of her career.

“I’ve become a real mother,” she jokes. “Now I really understand the satisfaction to be found in watching your child grow up.”

She says something clicked with Meijer, who came here in his early 20s to work in the telecommunications industry and speaks fluent Indonesian. “I don’t want to say ‘soulmates’, but it felt right, like it was meant to be,” she says, adding that she is “proud” of her husband’s understanding and respect for Indonesia.

“He has made me more positive and better in many ways.”

She has a supporting role in the feel-good movie Garuda di Dadaku (Garuda in My Heart), to be released mid-2009, playing the mother of a soccer-obsessed boy. She says it was good to be back amid the camaraderie of the set and enjoying acting again.

Her schedule remains full with presenting and emceeing jobs; there is still a place for her even amid the dumbing-down of the entertainment business. “She’s an extraordinary friend and colleague,” says TV host and fellow emcee Ferdy Hasan. “She’s one of Indonesia’s best talents in the business.”

And one of the best prepared. At the end of the interview, I mention the various mispellings

of her name on the Internet and in print publications. She clarifies it, and then adds, “But your name is also spelled different ways on Google.”

True to form, she has done her homework.

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