Carice van Houten on MeToo and nudity: ‘Why was I in the shower in every movie?’

The Dutch star on why her joke in Game of Thrones was ‘a triumph’ – but will ‘prude’ younger viewers be shocked by her Dangerous Liaisons?

When Carice van Houten was asked to appear in a new television version of Dangerous Liaisons, Christopher Hampton’s 1985 play, her first thought was: “Why would they want to do that again?”

“I saw the thrilling [1988] film with Glenn Close and John Malkovich, when I was probably too young, but I remember it being very romantic, tension-full and sexy,” she tells me. “Then there was the remake, Cruel Intentions [1999, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon as high school students], which I never saw. So I was very curious…”

Van Houten was soon convinced, though, by the premise of the new American series: a thrillingly messy prequel that explains why the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont are locked in such a peculiar dance of seduction, and reminds viewers that losers in the game of aristocratic sex-chess had a real chance of falling into the grimy gutter of pre-Revolutionary Paris.

“The story is great – it’s very appealing, these questions of power and sexuality,” she explains. “And what I realised is that this version is a more truthful portrayal: it shows all levels of society, and the story is told more clearly from [the Marquise de Merteuil] Camille’s point of view. It’s pretty much a feminist take on the whole thing…”