‘Game of Thrones’ Star Says #MeToo Movement Caused Her to Question Graphic Sex Scenes

Game of Thrones actress Carice Van Houten is opening up about the show’s graphic sex scenes. In an interview with Insider, Van Houten, who played the Red Woman Melisandre, revealed that the #MeToo movement has led her to regret many of her Game of Thrones sex scenes, as she feels they serve little narrative function. “In retrospect, I thought, ‘Why did that scene have to be nude?'” she said. “I’ve done that enough now. No more.”

Van Houten had numerous sex scenes in Game of Thrones — Melisandre’s trysts with Stannis (Stephen Dillane) and Gendry (Joe Dempsie) are particularly memorable — but she told Insider that in the wake of the #MeToo movement, she began to question whether such graphic nudity was necessary. “I was always very liberal and I defended nudity because I thought, ‘Why can you have a machine gun and not see a nipple?’ I thought it was so weird,” she said of her pre-2017 sentiment.

However, “when the Me Too movement started, that’s when it started sinking in,” she said. “It did sort of change my perspective on my whole career, not just Game of Thrones.”

The actress said she began to question why it was “normal” to see so much nudity on Game of Thrones, particularly with regard to women. “I became very aware of the male gaze,” Van Houten told Insider. “It was not so much that I was blaming anyone, but that’s just how we evolved, and just how the movement affected me … My consciousness is bigger. I’m a bit more woke.”

Overall, the experience has turned Van Houten off sex scenes. She told Inside that she’s brought the lesson she learned on Game of Thrones to her other projects, including her 2019 film Instinct, directed by Halina Reijn. “We sort of made it into a dogma where we are done with [nudity],” said the actress. “We don’t need to show nudity to create intimacy, we don’t need to see breasts.”

Read Game of Thrones star Carice Van Houten’s interview with Insider here.

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