Simply red

Dutch actor Carice van Houten reveals what it’s like to be at the heart of the fictional universe that is Game of Thrones. Janet Christie enjoys an audience with red priestess Melisandre as she juggles family life in between foretelling the future – but d

Carice van Houten talks to Janet Christie about playing Melisandre in Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones is back, you can’t have failed to notice, whether you’re a whizz on Westeros and the Seven Kingdoms, or you’ve finally joined the party to see what all the fuss is about and ask annoying questions like, ‘is that her brother she’s sleeping with?’ or, ‘wasn’t he dead?’

Already a broadcasting phenomenon with viewing figures for the last series averaging 25.1 million, the HBO and Sky Atlantic fantasy looks like breaking more records with its penultimate series Dragonstone. The trailer alone attracted 64 million views in 24 hours and the opening episode was watched by more than 10 million viewers.

Carice van Houten, 40, returns in the role of red priestess Melisandre and she has already ignited a social media storm by hinting at her character’s imminent demise.

In the real life van Houten household things are a little more muted. At the home she shares with actor Guy Pearce she sounds sleepy, giving her voice a laid-back drawl. She speaks four languages, five if you count Valyrian, and her English is a melted Gouda peppered with the occasional gently expressed expletive. But her tiredness is nothing to do with Melisandre being over 300 years old, it’s a lack of sleep thanks to 11-month old Monte, who has been running a slight temperature.

“It’s the most beautiful day sitting here, with my kid having a fever, therefore changing plans, you know? It’s just one of those mother days, every day’s a mother day, right? He’ll be fine,” she says.

Van Houten is deep into a promotional schedule for series seven and the actor, who has been thrice nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award, is happy to muse on the appeal of the show.

“There’s something in it for everyone. In that sense it’s a bit like Shakespeare I guess, and it’s a very smart soap, near to society, but not just one family, one street, it’s a whole world so you can get lost in it. And with big scenes that are never going to be boring…

“The themes are the big ones, the search for power and money. Back in the first season I watched the king… what’s his name?” She yawns. “Sorry I’m not in great shape... where he is complaining about being king and saying it’s f***ing s**t, you know, and the irony of everyone else wanting to be in that place. That is funny. And to me, this is just my interpretation, the whole thing about winter is coming and that big, big army of death coming for us, it’s really the thought of death in general. That nobody can escape death whether you’re rich or poor, man or woman. But, you know, I’m not sure… that’s what I get from it. I don’t know what the meaning is supposed to be!”

Van Houten was already a huge deal in the Netherlands before GOT thrust her into the international spotlight. Her Dutch language feature Love Life broke box office records there and her follow up The Happy Housewife won her a record-breaking 5th Golden Calf (the Dutch equivalent of a BAFTA). Voted Best Dutch Actress of All Time in 2008, she has also won fans for her singing, with the album See You On The Ice.

Born in 1976 in Leiderdorp in the western Netherlands to Theodore, a writer, broadcaster and silent film connoisseur and Margje Stasse, who is on the board of Dutch educational TV, Carice and her younger sister,