Carice van Houten

In her native country The Netherlands, Carice van Houten has become one of the most beloved actresses. She won several awards, including three Golden Calves for best actress and was voted ‘Best Dutch Actress of All Time’ by the Dutch audience in 2008. Her stunning performance in Paul Verhoeven’s war epic Black Book marked the beginning of Carice’s international breakthrough. In the Tom Cruise/ Bryan Singer film Valkyrie, she stars in the female lead as Nina Von Stauffenberg.

Carice Anouk van Houten was born in Leiderdorp (near Leiden) on 5 September 1976. In 1995 she was rather uniquely accepted by both the Maastricht and Amsterdam drama academies, and started her TV career (LABYRINT, VPRO TV 1997) as a student of the Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam. There she was awarded the 1999 Pisuisse Prize for most promising graduation student, and the 2000 Top Naeff Prize for her theatre work. A day before the Top Naeff Prize she was awarded the Golden Calf as best TV actress in Martin Koolhoven's Suzy Q.

In 2006 Carice shines as Jewish singer Rachel Stein in Paul Verhoeven’s critically acclaimed Black Book. One year later Carice displays a great comic talent in the romantic comedy Love Is All. The film is a major box office hit and becomes one of the most succesful Dutch films of all times.

Bryan Singer’s Valkyrie is the first major Hollywood production for Carice to appear in. She stars as Nina von Stauffenberg, the wife of Tom Cruise’s character Claus von Stauffenberg who makes an attempt on Hitler’s life. In the same year New York Magazine proclaimed her Woman of the Year and Vanity Fair featured a Vanities article on her.

Variety on Carice’s role in the 2009 Dutch box office hit A Woman Goes To The Doctor: “Carice van Houten ("Black Book," "Valkyrie") in another attention-grabbing perf as the two-timed, terminally ill woman (…) Van Houten often steals the show, delivering some of the pic's best lines with an increasingly biting cynicism.”

In Rope Men she stars as the wife of Jude Law’s character. Other films coming out in 2010 are From Time To Time (dir. Julian Fellowes), Black Death (dir. Christopher Smith) and the Dutch film De Gelukkig Huisvrouw (dir. Antoinette Beumer).