Background

Ethnicity: Carice van Houten's paternal grandmother was Scottish.

Van Houten was born on September 5, 1976, in Leiderdorp, Netherlands. Her mother, Margje Stasse, is on the board of Dutch educational TV, and her father, Theodore van Houten (1952–2016), was a writer and broadcaster. She was brought up watching silent films and in an interview, she professed to prefer playing scenes without dialogue. She has a younger sister, Jelka van Houten, who is also an actress.

Carice 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".

Education

Van Houten went to the St. Bonifatiuscollege (high school) in Utrecht, where she played the leading role in Hugo Claus' Tijl Uilenspieghel, directed by Ad Migchielsen. Van Houten studied briefly at the Maastricht Academy of Dramatic Arts but continued her professional education after one year at the Kleinkunstacademie in Amsterdam.

Career

Clarice Van Houten began her acting career on stage before delving into film and television in her home country. She had her first major on-screen role in the telefilm Suzy Q (1999) for which she received her first Golden Calf Award, the award of the Netherlands Film Festival. She received a second Golden Calf for her lead role in the comedy film Undercover Kitty (2001). With further starring roles in films like Father’s Affair (2003), Black Swans (2005) and A Thousand Kisses (2006), Van Houten easily established herself as one of the most notable actresses in the Netherlands.

Van Houten received several accolades for her performance as Rachel Stein in Black Book (2006), the highest-grossing Dutch film of that year. She won the Golden Calf Award and was also nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Actress. The talented actress had her first English role in the thriller film Dorothy Mills (2008) which marked her entry into the realm of English-language movies.

In addition to her already thriving career in her home country, she began to get film roles in other European countries as well as the United States. She had roles in Valkyrie (2008), From Time to Time (2009), Repo Men (2010), Black Death (2010), Intruders (2011), The Happy Housewife (2011), Black Butterflies (2012) among several others. She received numerous accolades for her performance in some of these films including 2 Golden Calf Awards and 2 Saturn Award nominations.

In July 2011, Carice Van Houten landed her most notable TV role yet when she was cast as Melisandre of Asshai in the HBO series Game of Thrones (2012-2019). The role effectively launched her into international stardom and cemented her status as an A-list actress. While her work on Game of Thrones continued, the actress has recorded further acting credits in diverse movie genres both in her home country and in Hollywood. More recently, she has had starring roles in Race (2016), Brimstone (2016) and Incarnate (2016).

Achievements

• 

  Carice van Houten gained widespread recognition for her performance in Black Book (2006), the most commercially successful Dutch film to date, for which she won her second Golden Calf for Best Actress, in addition to nominations from the Chicago Film Critics Association, the European Film Academy, and the Online Film Critics Society. She was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for Valkyrie (2008), and won her fourth and fifth Golden Calf Awards for Best Actress for The Happy Housewife (2010) and Black Butterflies (2011). Her other notable English-language performances include Repo Men (2010), Black Death (2010), and Brimstone (2016).
  
  Since 2012, Van Houten has received international recognition for her recurring role as Melisandre on the HBO television series Game of Thrones (2012–2019), for which she has been nominated for two Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series.

Works

More photos

• movie

  • Watch Domino

    (In order to seek justice for their partner's murder, Cope...)

    2019
  • Black Butterflies

    (Award-winning biopic about poet Ingrid Jonker, regarded a...)

    2011
  • Black Book

    (In the darkest days of World War II, a Dutch Resistance c...)

    2006
  • Black Death

    (In the time of the black plague, a grizzled band of soldi...)

    2010
  • Repo Men

    (Jude Law and Forest Whitaker star in this ultra-cool acti...)

    2010
  • Race

    (The incredible true story of Olympic legend Jesse Owens' ...)

    2016
  • Brimstone

    (Wrongly accused of a crime she didn't commit, a frontier ...)

    2016
  • A Thousand Kisses

    (After a death in the family turns his world upside down, ...)

    2006
  • Valkyrie

    (At the height of WWII, a group of German officers hatched...)

    2008
  • The Fifth Estate

    (Triggering our age of high-stakes secrecy, explosive news...)

    2013
  • Incarnate

    (Aaron Eckhart stars in the supernatural-thriller "Incarna...)

    2016
  • Intruders

    (Though no one can see him, Hollow Face lurks in the corne...)

    2011
  • The Happy Housewife

    (After giving birth to her first child, a happily married ...)

    2010
  • Undercover Kitty

    (A cat who turns into a young woman helps a journalist pro...)

    2001
  • Stricken

    (A serial adulterer faces his demons when his loving wife ...)

    2009
  • Dorothy Mills

    (A psychiatrist is assigned to work on the case of a distu...)

    2008
  • tch Jackie

    (Dutch twin sisters travel to America to meet their long-l...)

    2012
  • Lepel

    (Years ago, Lepel's parents left for a hot air balloon wor...)

    2005
  • From Time To Time

    (A haunting story spanning two worlds, centuries apart. A ...)

    2009

• TV series

  • Game of Thrones: The Complete Seasons 1-8

    (Nine noble families fight for control over the mythical l...)

    2011

Views

Clarice Van Houten is a WWF ambassador since 2009.

Quotations: "I like to play a strong woman, but a strong woman can also be very fragile and vulnerable at the same time."

"I'm cold in summer. I'm the coldest person ever! It's very ironic I'm never cold in the scripts. Every time I'm shooting, if you don't see a part of me, there are hot water bottles there."

"I have a love-hate relationship with Twitter. There are moments I feel like 99 percent of the people who write stuff are the sweetest people, and then one crazy guy or girl spoils the whole thing."

"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. I'm a workaholic."

"I'm completely the opposite of what I play on 'Game of Thrones.'"

"Whenever you have to do a photo shoot with a woman, there is this weird competition. They need to prove something. They need to play games - maybe unconsciously - but women are so sensitive, and people call me more masculine sometimes."

"I can't say I'm having trouble with my husband or that I have a stubborn child."

Personality

Clarice Van Houten is a workaholic.

She is fluent in Dutch, English, German and French.

Van Houten has stated that Hollywood makes her unhappy: "I have seen Hollywood, and although I have nothing against it, it's not my kind of life. My agent is shocked that I want to stay in Europe," adding, "If Hollywood offers me a great part, of course, I'll take it, but I just don't want to live there".

Physical Characteristics: Height - 5 ft 6½ in (169 cm)

Weight - 61 kg (134.5 lbs)

Hair color - dark brown

Eye color - blue

Measurements - 34-24-33 in or 86-61-84 cm

Dress Size - 4 (US) or 36 (EU)

Interests

• Favorite movie - Singin' in the Rain (1952)
  
  Favorite film directors - Paul Verhoeven and Martin Koolhoven

• Artists

  Favorite comedians - Laurel and Hardy

• Sport & Clubs

  Workout

Connections

Van Houten is in a relationship with Australian actor Guy Pearce. On 29 August 2016, she gave birth to their son, Monte Pearce.

She previously dated German actor Sebastian Koch, whom she met on the set of Blackbook.

Father:

Theodore van Houten

(9 August 1952 – 7 April 2016)

He was a Dutch-British writer, journalist, columnist, radio-theatre producer, critic, and translator.

Mother:

Margje Stasse

Spouse:

Guy Pearce

(born 5 October 1967)

He is an Australian actor.

Sister:

Jelka van Houten

(born 1 September 1978)

She is a Dutch actress. She has acted in Dutch films, musicals, and television series. She also played Sabine in the British TV series Fresh Meat.

Son:

Monte Pearce

colleague:

Richard Dormer

(born 11 November 1969)

He is an Northern Irish actor, playwright and screenwriter.

colleague:

Ben Crompton

(born 28 November 1974)

He is an English actor and standup comedian, best known for his performance on the BBC sketch show Man Stroke Woman and as Colin in the BBC Three sitcom Ideal.

colleague:

Nathalie Emmanuel

(born 2 March 1989)

She is an English actress.

colleague:

Kristofer Hivju

(born 7 December 1978)

He is a Norwegian actor.

colleague:

Jacob Anderson

(born 18 June 1990)

He is a British actor, singer-songwriter, rapper, and record producer.

colleague:

Emilia Clarke

(born 23 October 1986)

She is an English actress.

colleague:

Isaac Hempstead-Wright

(born April 9, 1999)

He is an English actor.

colleague:

Maisie Williams

(born 15 April 1997)

She is an English actress.

colleague:

Peter Dinklage

(born June 11, 1969)

He is an American actor and producer.

colleague:

Lena Headey

(born 3 October 1973)

She is an English actress.

colleague:

John Bradley

(born 15 September 1988)

He is an English actor, best known for his role as Samwell Tarly in the HBO fantasy TV series Game of Thrones.

colleague:

Kit Harington

(born 26 December 1986)

He is an English actor.

colleague:

Pilou Asbæk

Johan Philip "Pilou" Asbæk is a Danish actor. He is known for his role as troubled spin doctor Kasper Juul in the Danish television political drama Borgen, and as Euron Greyjoy in the television series Game of Thrones.

colleague:

Alfie Allen

(born 12 September 1986)

He is an English actor.

colleague:

Liam Cunningham

(born 2 June 1961)

He is an Irish stage and screen actor.

colleague:

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau

(born 27 July 1970)

He is a Danish actor, producer and screenwriter.

References

• Entertainment WEEKLY Magazine March 15-22, 2019 LIAM CUNNINGHAM as DAVOS SEAWORTH & CARICE VAN HOUTEN as MELISANDRE Cover, GAME OF THRONES Intel and Top Secret Report