Carice van Houten’s shock confession: ‘I wanted to leave Game Of Thrones for my baby’

GAME Of Thrones star Carice van Houten reveals the moment she “broke apart” and considered leaving the hit TV show.

GAME Of Thrones might be the biggest TV series on the planet but Dutch actress Carice van Houten almost considered throwing in the towel for the latest season.

The partner of Australian actor Guy Pearce — who plays sex siren Melisandre in the wildly successful fantasy drama — admits the birth of the couple’s first child, Monte last August tested her devotion to the series.

The 40-year-old, who returned to work only a matter of weeks after giving birth to her son, told TV Guide she “broke apart” .

“It was a little too early,” van Houten admits.“He was at home and I remember one scene I did, I was in the green room and I was alone and I just broke apart.

“Someone came in and asked if I was OK and I just said ‘I just want to go home to my baby.’

It all became unimportant to me. It’s a great, important show but once you’ve just had a baby nothing else really matters.”

Pearce, who began his career on Neighbours, met van Houten while filming the 2015 movie, Brimstone (which also starred GoT actor Kit Harrington, aka Jon Snow).

Baby love...Guy Pearce and Carice van Houten take their son Monte for a walk. Picture: Instagram

The pair are known to be extremely private when it comes to their relationship and almost one-year-old son.

But in a rare moment of candour, van Houten — who has played ‘The Red Priestess’ since 2012 — let down her guard, revealing how motherhood has changed what she can stomach watching and filming Van Houten refers specifically to her character killing the young Princess Shireen in cold blood in the sixth series, and admits she couldn’t have “done the scene with Shireen” after becoming a mum.

“I remember reading it and I thought this was the worst scene I ever shot,” she said.

“But I couldn’t really feel what it meant, I just knew it was horrible. And now I can’t watch anything on TV with children or animals or anything – you’re just an open wound once you become a parent.”

Fired up...van Houten plays red queen, Melisandre, who burned Shireen at the stake. Picture: HBO

Spoilers surrounding possible plot lines of season seven have been circling since producers dropped the trailer in May, but van Houten was careful not to give away any hints.

Judging by Melisandre’s brief stint in the teaser clip, it appears she is set to make her way to Dragonstone, with hardcore fans speculating she could have dealings with Iron Throne contender Daenerys Taragaryen (Emilia Clarke).

However, van Houten teased that viewers would witness a far more vulnerable side to her character, which we came to see a glimpse of toward the end of the sixth series after she was banished from the North for burning Shireen at the stake.

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“It was very hard to defend [Melisandre] for a long time, I was struggling hard,” she says.

“I was always saying ‘she’s doing it for the greater good’. I always tried not to play her as a villain, but someone who thought she was doing the right thing.

“But I was very happy when there was that moment when she actually confesses she was wrong and that made her human for me.

“As an actor that was the nicest thing to play, to finally let that bubble break a little bit. To show some sort of vulnerability.”

* Game Of Thrones, airs 11am and 8.30pm, Monday, Foxtel Now and showcase.