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WHY I’M DRAWN TO THE DARK SIDE
Grittier second series of medical drama Temple
Game Of Thrones’s Carice van Houten on the sexier,
With her fiery red hair and the ability to control shadows, Dutch actress Carice van Houten’s Game Of Thrones character Melisandre, known as the Red Woman, was nothing less than striking. And she certainly struck a chord with viewers. When she killed a child in the show people
would scream, ‘Die bitch!’ at Carice in the street, and when she saved hero Jon Snow they shouted, ‘Red Woman for president!’
Carice was unperturbed. She’s always been drawn to darkness in her work, so it’s little wonder she signed up to Sky’s intense drama Temple, set beneath the streets of London, which is back for a second series. In the first, surgeon Daniel Milton (Mark Strong) set up an illegal clinic in a labyrinth of abandoned Tube tunnels to find a cure for his wife Beth (Catherine Mccormack) who was terminally ill, but he also treated criminals and others who couldn’t get help by the usual means. He was helped by medical researcher Anna (Carice) and Tube worker Lee (Daniel Mays). Together, Anna’s research and Daniel Milton’s surgery saved Beth’s life.
As series two opens Anna is determined to claim the credit she’s being denied for the cure she created, while we delve deeper into her complex relationship with her former lover Daniel. ‘We get more of their back story, it all becomes a bit darker and grittier,’ says Carice. ‘She’s a really ambitious woman who’s now single and fully focused on fighting for her worth. But her chances aren’t great.
‘What I like about the development with Anna and Daniel is that you see more of the love story, with flashbacks to the good times. There’s a lot of bickering, but the bickering is passionate. It feels like when they fight they’re making love.’
Carice has become one of Europe’s most sought-after actresses since she played a covert Jew in the Dutch thriller Blackbook in 2006. Hollywood beckoned but she didn’t want it, although she did appear in Tom Cruise’s 2008 film Valkyrie. ‘I didn’t even have to audition,’ she says. ‘When you get a call from Tom... I was overwhelmed.’
She first met her Temple co-star Mark Strong on
Ridley Scott’s 2008 film Body Of Lies, but her role as Leonardo Dicaprio’s wife didn’t make the cut. ‘Mark was the first reason I said yes to Temple,’ she says. It must have been galling to have been cut out of the film though? ‘Yes, but to be honest it wasn’t an important storyline. I never took it as something I did wrong. I looked at it as, “I had the experience of working with Ridley and Leonardo and I met Mark.”’
She joined Game Of Thronesforseriestwo in 2012, and remained until the show ended in 2019. ‘That was a blessing,’ she says. ‘But it also put me in a certain corner. I’m much better at playing people with flaws, people with drama behind their eyes. Someone who’s completely sure of themselves isn’t much fun to play.’
She’s speaking from her home just outside Amsterdam, where she lives with Monte, her fiveyear-old son by her partner, Australian actor Guy Pearce. They met on the set of the 2016 movie Brimstone after the breakdown of Guy’s 18-year marriage. The pregnancy was unplanned but Carice, 45, thinks she’s changed both as a person and as an actor since she became a mother. ‘Now Monte’s at school, I can’t just go to Budapest for three months,’ she says. ‘So I’m even more picky about my work. Because of Monte, Guy’s working in Europe more, I want us all to be together as much as we can. Unfortunately half-term happens when I’m shooting something in Prague.’
She’s going there to film a TV series based on the 1988 film Dangerous Liaisons, written by Harriet Warner who has also written for Call The Midwife. ‘My passion project though is still that I want to make a movie about Greta Garbo,’ she says. ‘In my head it’s not a traditional biopic with nice costumes and cars – it’s way more existential. I don’t care what else happens in my life, but that’s the thing I need to do.’
Temple, 28 October, Sky Max and NOW.