Carice Van Houten

At 47 years old, Carice Van Houten has this physical status:

Carice Anouk van Houten (born 5 September 1976) is a Dutch actress and singer.

Suzy Q (1999), her first leading role in a television drama, earned her the Golden Calf for Best Acting in a Television Drama; two years later, she received the Golden Calf for Best Actress for Undercover Kitty (2001). She gained widespread praise for her role in Black Book (2006), the most commercially successful Dutch film to date, for which she received 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 she received her fourth and fifth Golden Calf Awards for Best Actress for The Happy Housewife (2010) and Black Butterflies (2011).

Repo Men (2010), Black Death (2010), and Brimstone (2016) were among her other notable English-language appearances. Van Houten's regular role as Melisandre on HBO's Game of Thrones (2012–2019), for which she received two Screen Actor Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series.

Early life

Van Houten was brought up to silent films, but in an interview she confessed to preferring scenes without dialogue. Jelka van Houten, a younger sister who is also an actor, is an actress. Her paternal grandmother was Scottish. Van Houten attended the St. Bonifatiuscollege (high school) in Utrecht, where she played a key role in Hugo Claus' Tijl Uilenspieghel, directed by Ad Migchielsen. Van Houten attended the Maastricht Academy of Dramatic Arts for a brief period of time, but she continued her academic study after attending the Kleinkunstacademie in Amsterdam for one year.

Personal life

Van Houten is in a relationship with Australian actor Guy Pearce, who appeared on Brimstone. Monte Pearce, her son, was born in August 2016. She used to date German actor Sebastian Koch; the pair met on the set of the 2006 film Black Book.

Van Houten speaks in Dutch, English, German, and French.

"I have been to Hollywood, and although I have nothing against it, it is not my kind of life," Van Houten said. "If Hollywood gives me a huge part, of course I'll take it," my agent says, "I don't want to live in Europe."

Since 1994, Van Houten has been friends with fellow Dutch actress Halina Reijn. They appeared in the films Black Book and Valkyrie together. In 2013, the two authors published Anti Glamour, a parody style guide and a celebration of their marriage, as well as a look at the nefarious back-stage of their lives.

Van Houten is a lifelong fan of Laurel and Hardy. She appeared on Black Sky Radio in June 2016 to discuss her obsession with the comedy pair.

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Acting career

Van Houten played her first leading role in Martin Koolhoven's TV film Suzy Q. She won a Golden Calf for her part as Suzy. She also won the Pisuisse Award and the Top Naeff Award for her stage acting and another Golden Calf for her part as the kitten that becomes a woman in Miss Minoes (2001). The first time she could be seen in cinemas in the U.S. was when Martin Koolhoven's AmnesiA (2001) got a small theatrical release.

Van Houten won a Golden Calf for her performance as Rachel Stein in Black Book (2006) at the Netherlands Film Festival. Black Book's director Paul Verhoeven said about her in a television interview: "Never in my life I have worked with an actress this talented", and when asked to compare her with Sharon Stone he said "Carice can really act." The international press was also enthusiastic about her role in Black Book.

In December 2006, Van Houten withdrew from a theatre production of Alex van Warmerdam due to personal reasons. According to a theatre spokesman it was because of a work overload.

In 2008, she starred in the non-commercial short movie Zingen in het donker (English: Singing in the dark), a drama on domestic violence. She appeared in the magazine Vanity Fair in the issue for March 2008, photographed by Wayne Maser. In 2008, Van Houten had a role opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Body of Lies but her scenes did not make the final cut of the movie.

In April 2009, it was announced that Van Houten would star in Black Death by British director Christopher Smith and in the Dutch film Komt een vrouw bij de dokter (English title: Stricken), based on the novel of the same name by Ray Kluun. She also starred in the science fiction thriller Repo Men.

In July 2011, Van Houten was cast as the priestess Melisandre in the second season of HBO's fantasy TV series Game of Thrones. Her performance has garnered her praise and recognition, earning her a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for her final performance as the character in the season 8 episode "The Long Night" in 2019. After nominations were announced for the ceremony, Van Houten received considerable media attention for having been one of the three nominated actors from the show to have self-submitted and paid entry fees to be on the ballot for Emmy consideration after HBO had not done so for them. She has also received three Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series in 2014, 2016, and 2017 for the role.

In 2012, Van Houten appeared in Antony and the Johnsons' "Cut the world" video, which was directed by Nabil Elderkin and also starred Willem Dafoe and Marina Abramović.

In 2019, Van Houten starred as a prison therapist that becomes infatuated with one of her patients, a serial rapist, in Halina Reijn’s directorial debut Instinct. The film premiered at the Locarno Film Festival, receiving the Variety Piazza Grande Award and was selected as the Dutch submission for Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards. Variety’s Guy Lodge described Van Houten as being "on electrifying form" and Reijn's direction "provides a fearsome reminder" of the former's breakthrough performance in Black Book.

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