The opposite of her.” Unexpectedly, van Houten cried when her role ended in season eight’s dramatic finale this year. 31 things you'll see on city streets tonight (and social distancing isn't one of them), ‘I tried a menopause MOT and it wasn't what I expected’. “People talk about Game of Thrones, and I think: ‘Oh, I wish you’d seen me in some of my other roles…’” We’re here to talk about her latest post-GoT project: Temple, a quirky, eight-part Sky drama in which she joins an ensemble cast headed by Mark Strong. “In my country,” says the 43-year-old Game of Thrones star, “being naked feels quite natural.” Today, she is dressed in a quirky maelstrom of Gucci: embossed satin jacket, gold paisley shirt, yellow tartan skirt and luminous pixie boots. Until then, I’m happy here with my friends and my family. There was nothing cliched about it.” Toddler Monte, who was born within days of his mother’s 40th birthday, stayed with her during filming in London. I’m at the airport expressing milk, I’ve had a Caesarean, and I can hardly walk.’ But, at the same time, you also see the funny side – this is just life happening to you.” Monte’s arrival was one of “a tsunami of events” in her fortieth year. My dad had reached the barely conscious stage, but they say hearing is the last thing to go and, when we returned, I whispered the good news to him. I wasn’t a main character and, as a non-Brit, I’d sometimes felt a bit of an outsider. “It was necessary,” she insists, “because Melisandre used her body and sexuality as a weapon, so I don’t regret it. You need to be a subscriber to join the conversation. Approaching midlife not long after starting a family (she has a three-year-old son, Monte, with Australian actor Guy Pearce) has had unexpected side effects for her career: suddenly less assured about her own body, she is, however, more confident about turning down roles that require nude scenes. “It’s good that I’d had a career beforehand,” she says. I’m so grateful I did.”  She shares parenting duty with Pearce, who now lives with her in Amsterdam. Before Melisandre, she’d had roles in notable films like Paul Verhoeven’s Black Book and Bryan Singer’s Valkyrie, opposite Tom Cruise. So here's what the standards are. 112.9k Likes, 1,039 Comments - Carice van Houten (@leavecaricealone) on Instagram: “Good times” Twenty-five minutes later, he died – which was beautiful, in a way, but it still hurts that my dad and Monte never met. At home, too, she was voted “Best Dutch Actress of All Time” and has five Golden Calf awards, her country’s Bafta equivalent. “Yes, it’s good to show that real bodies are different at 40-plus than they were at 22. Being an older mother, she says, is a mixed blessing. Returning to Game of Thrones when he was six weeks old was brutal. She wasn’t the usual mistress, either – not evil or overtly sexual, but human, flawed and likeable. In fact, you have sympathy for all the characters, even if they haven’t always made the right moral choices. ‘I'm a real-life Fatima – but pivoting from dance to cyber made me miserable’, 'I had a lovely home, happy kids and a solid marriage... but I was secretly starving myself'. “Arrogantly, I’ve always thought: ‘If Hollywood really wants me, come and get me. Having joined the GoT cast in its second season, nudity came with the territory. They’d have loved each other.” Van Houten andPearce hadn’t planned on being parents. And, you know, I just can’t do it. “I didn’t know if I could still conceive, but it just happened quickly after we met. But she remained close to both and was devastated when her father died of cancer during her pregnancy. “I’d wanted to work with Mark Strong forever, plus, after Game of Thrones, I wanted to play someone contemporary with some wit and humour. “I’ve had lunches in Hollywood where my face has ached from all the false laughing. And if life has taught me anything in the last few years, it’s that it isn’t all about the work.”, Temple will be available on Sky One from September 13 sky.com/watch/temple. Yet, the emotion was overwhelming, probably because those seven years on the show felt so connected to seven big years in my private life.”. 765 Followers, 232 Following, 619 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Carice van Houten fãs (@caricebr) Carice van Houten has a Dutch approach to nudity, both on screen and off. We urge you to turn off your ad blocker for The Telegraph website so that you can continue to access our quality content in the future. “Therapy isn’t something to be ashamed of,” she says. So now, whatever I do work-wise, I’m always thinking: ‘Is it good enough to be away from my son?’ It turns you into an open wound.”. “But I’m loving it now.” For her career-defining role as Red Priestess Melisandre, she got to wear some extravagant outfits – flowing scarlet robes, matching red hair, a necklace that literally took centuries off her – as well as the chance to appear in… well, nothing at all. She has also done a ton of psychotherapy, so she’s used to opening up. “Melisandre was a real challenge because I had no idea what to tap into,” she says. I also like to laugh a lot. He’d been born with a hole in the heart, which could be hereditary, so we both cried when we were told the baby was normal. 1.3m Followers, 1,488 Following, 1,236 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Carice van Houten (@leavecaricealone) Sometimes the universe decides and you go with the flow. Can natural remedies help combat symptoms of the menopause? Van Houten plays Anna, a medical researcher drawn in, against her better judgement, not least because she’s had an affair with Milton. We rely on advertising to help fund our award-winning journalism. “My sister Jelka and I went from my father’s bedside to my five-month scan in the same hospital. “I was in this big fantasy show but thinking: ‘The reality is, I just had a baby. magic of the Maldives, Joanna Trollope is tired of substandard men, and she’s not alone. Born the eldest of two sisters, Van Houten’s parents, Margjje, a TV executive, and Theodore, a musicologist and silent film expert, had separated when she was little. “The role ticked lots of boxes for me,” she says. 4,597 Likes, 97 Comments - Carice van Houten (@leavecaricealone) on Instagram: “We did it again @halinareijn ️So proud to show you the teaser of ‘Red Light ‘our first Man Up…” These days, I’m still willing to talk about the possibility, but I’m kind of over it.”. But, then, she was never that drawn to the LA life. Why do I always date men who need fixing? Van Houten has a natural honesty and great likeability – partly, perhaps, because English isn’t her first language, so dissembling is an effort. He plays Daniel Milton, a surgeon who creates a subterranean clinic beneath London’s Temple station both for desperados needing treatment outside the system and to illegally treat his terminally ill wife, played by Catherine McCormack. What I hadn’t prepared for was the emotional shock of motherhood and the feeling of being constantly torn. I’d had a career before Game of Thrones, too, so, unlike the younger cast, I hadn’t grown up on it. “It can be painful, embarrassing and hard work, but it’s also hugely rewarding.” In the flesh, the actress is friendlier, funnier, tinier and far more klutzy than you’d ever imagine, were you to confuse her with the formidable Melisandre, the character who, among much else, burned poor little Shireen at the stake, resurrected Jon Snow, gave birth to a “shadow baby” and extracted blood for her spells by placing leeches on the genitals of Gendry, the royal bastard. Follow on Instagram Follow on LinkedIn Women latest 16 Oct 2020, 7:00am 'I …