- Born
- Birth nameCarice Anouk van Houten
- Height5′ 5″ (1.65 m)
- One of Europe's most celebrated actresses, Carice van Houten is perhaps best known as 'Melisandre' in the iconic TV show Game of Thrones, a performance for which she has been recognized with an Emmy Award nomination in 2019. Other projects include Paul Verhoeven's award-winning Black Book and Bryan Singer's Valkyrie opposite Tom Cruise and as Melisandre on Game of Thrones. Recent projects include Instinct and Temple, a TV show for Sky opposite Mark Strong, which has been picked up for a second season.
Her Dutch-language feature Love Life, gained her further critical acclaim and broke box office records in her native Holland. Her next film Happy Housewive won her a record breaking 5th Golden Calf at The Netherlands Film Festival and was voted 'Best Dutch Actress of All Time' by the Dutch audience. Other awards include Best Actress for Black Butterflies at the Tribeca Film Festival and the Best Performance award for Instinct at the Les Arcs Film Festival 2019.
Her credits include Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's Intruders and Bill Condon's The Fifth Estate, the Jesse Owens biopic, Race, with Jason Sudekis and Jeremy Irons and voiced a character in The Simpsons. She can also be seen in Brian de Palma's Domino and in Brimstone, opposite Dakota Fanning, Guy Pearce and Kit Harrington, and The Glass Room, with Claes Bang. She played a leading role in Halina Reijn's directorial feature debut Instinct, opposite Marwan Kenzari (Aladdin), which won the Variety Piazza Grande Award in Locarno Film Festival 2019. Instinct is the first outing for the Carice and Halina's production banner, Man Up.
Up next is the new Dutch series Red Light, in which she not only plays the lead role but she is also creative producer of the show, together with Halina and their production company Man Up The show is expected to air in Autumn 2020.- IMDb Mini Biography By: nummer19 management
- ChildrenMonte Pearce
- ParentsMargje Stasse
- RelativesJelka van Houten(Sibling)
- She was approached to play the role of "Cersei Lannister" in Game of Thrones (2011), but refused, due to schedule conflicts with Intruders (2011), and the role went to Lena Headey. In Season 2, she was cast as "Melisandre".
- Is fluent in Dutch, English, German and French.
- Scored a #1 hit in The Netherlands with Dutch rock band, Kane, in 2010.
- In a relationship with Guy Pearce since 2015. They have a son, Monte Pearce (b. August 29, 2016).
- She is named after the daughter of the English composer, Sir Edward Elgar, due to the fact that Carice's father was investigating the secret of "Elgars Enigma Variations".
- I don't do method acting. If I play a farmer I'm not gonna spend 3 weeks on a chicken farm. That's a bit too much for me. For Minoes (in which she played a cat in a woman's body) I didn't spend 3 weeks in a cat pound.
- In The Netherlands you know who the good and the bad are if I have to say it so black and white. You can orientate yourself better in your own country. Here everything is overwhelming. It is very difficult to know who to trust here.
- To me, that's not the most difficult thing. To transform. I don't really see it happen. I don't have the feeling I am transforming, really. I don't believe you can get into somebody's character but more that somebody comes in you. You just use yourself. In everything I play, I feel like it is me. I just say different things on different times and look different.
- If you are not in America fast enough, it must have failed. When there is another thing like, maybe I don't want to go to America. I mean, it's not SO great there anyway...
- On what foreign press wants to know: I think they're all waiting for a crazy story about Paul (Verhoeven), that he exploded once or something, but I keep telling them he's a sweet man so I keep letting them down. And what it's like to be naked on a set. They all think that's very exciting. I just answer that in Holland, it's weird not to be naked on a set so we're all used to it.
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