Reinout Oerlemans

Reinout Oerlemans (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈrɛinʌut ˈuːrləmɑns]; born 10 June 1971) is a Dutch soap opera actor, film director, television presenter and television producer. He is the founder of the TV production company Eyeworks.

In 1989, while studying law at the University of Amsterdam, Oerlemans was "plucked off the street" and cast as a lead in the first Dutch daily, prime time drama Goede Tijden, Slechte Tijden. After six years with the series, he became one of the most successful TV personalities in the Netherlands, hosting a variety of entertainment shows including the first cycles of American Idol in the Netherlands. He also hosted the hit series Strictly Come Dancing, as well as many seasons of his own talk show, Pulse, for the largest commercial network RTL Television.

In 2001, Oerlemans founded his own production company, Eyeworks. Eyeworks grew to encompass 16 companies across continental Europe, Scandinavia, South America, New Zealand, Australia and the United States — making it one of the top five largest independent production companies in the world. In 2014 Time Warner bought Eyeworks for a reported 200 million euros.

He has been active in the entertainment industry for 24 years in a variety of roles, starting out as an actor. Currently, he is the chairman of television production company 3Ball Entertainment (formerly called Eyeworks USA), based in Los Angeles. This company was part of the Eyeworks Group until February 2014, when the Group was sold to Warner Bros. At the time of the sale, Eyeworks Group had produced television programs in 16 countries for over 100 different channels and employed over 1,500 people. 3 Ball Entertainment is one of the largest reality producers in the USA. Its credits include the hit series Extreme Weight Loss (the show also airs as Obese in 150 countries worldwide) and Bar Rescue, (100 episodes for Spike) among many other programs.