Pieter Jan Brugge was born and raised in Deventer, The Netherlands. His father Jan (1918-2000) was a painter and his grandfather Jan (1882-1941) was the director of the Deventer Music School from 1922-1941. After graduating from the Film Academie in Amsterdam in 1979 Pieter Jan came to L.A. for an additional year of studies at the AFI, but he has been working in the United States ever since. He and Dutch actor Henk Brugge share the same great-grandfather, Jan Brugge (1853-1894).