If you haven’t heard, actress Carice van Houten was one of several actors cast in HBO’s fantasy drama Game Of Thrones last week. The Dutch actress, who last year played the villain opposite Sean Bean in the horror film Black Death, was cast as Lady Melisandre of Asshai, the “Red Priestess” of dangerous beauty who influences King Stannis (Stephen Dillane) with her new religion.

Van Houten recently spoke about her role in an interview which you can find on YouTube. You probably won’t understand it unless you speak Dutch. Thankfully, someone’s translated it into English, and here’s what van Houten has to say about Lady Melisandre.

“She is a very manipulative woman, a priestess, a fundamental character,” van Houten says. “She knows how to twist men around her little finger, in all sorts of ways.”

Van Houten also states that she’d been offered an earlier Game Of Thrones role, but had been forced to turn it down at the time. “When they asked me to try out for a different role, I was available and interested. That’s how I wound up in a very small room in Ireland in front of five men, scared out of my wits.”

And while she feels “pressure to perform at the top of my game,” van Houten feels confident that both Game Of Thrones and Melisandre will be around for the foreseeable future: “[Game Of Thrones] is going to be around for a while, so I’ll be playing this role for the next few years. As far as I know, there could be as many as six more seasons. We’ll have to wait and see if the series remains popular or [HBO] decides to cancel it at some point. We don’t know how it will play out, but hopefully I will be on board for multiple seasons.”

Thanks to Winter-Is-Coming.net for the translation. Game of Thrones will return for its second season in spring 2012.

Source: Zap2It