If you’ve turned on a television in the last couple of year, the odds of you running into actor Michiel Huisman are very strong. The handsome, usually bearded, and exceedingly charming actor was born in Amstelveen, Noord-Holland, near Amsterdam, and after smaller roles in such films as BLACK BOOK and THE YOUNG VICTORIA became know to American audiences playing a talented but troubled musician in HBO’s “Treme,” which led to roles in “Nashville,” “Orphan Black” (he plays Cal Morrison), and his best known part as the fearless Daario Naharis on “Game of Thrones.” He’s also managed to find time for working in films like WORLD WAR Z and last year’s WILD.
His latest film is THE AGE OF ADALINE, starring Blake Lively as a woman who, through a strange accident, stops aging in the early 20th century. She lives a life of solitude for decades until she meets Ellis Jones (Huisman), and is drawn into a hesitant (on her part) love affair. Harrison Ford plays Ellis’s father, a man who has a shared history with Adaline. So yes, that means Harrison Ford plays Huisman’s father; wrap your brain around that possibility for a second.
I had a chance recently to sit down with Huisman in Chicago to talk about ADALINE, what it means to tell an unabashedly romantic story, as well as his work on “Game of Thrones” and his character’s relationship with the Queen of Dragons. He was a great deal of fun to chat with, so please enjoy my talk with Michiel Huisman…
Capone: Nice to meet you.
Michiel Huisman: Nice meeting you, too. Michiel.
Capone: I was a huge admirer of “Treme." I never missed it. I was so convinced that you were, like the woman who was your initial co-star, a musician who was hired as an actor and not an actor who also was a musician. So you were very convincing as both. It was such an amazing show. And I’m glad it lasted as long as it did, too.
MH: Against all odds, we got to make four seasons—the fourth season really being half a season. Still, it’s a testament to HBO. Of course, in the end, people have to watch it, but they also stand up for making quality stuff. I was really impressed by that. I so appreciate you saying that. Thank you.
Capone: Having learned where you came from and about the work you did before that series, how did you get that job? How did they discover you?
MH: I think I owe that to the casting director. Alexa Fogel is one of the great casting directors, and she always tries to surprise and find an actor that would be a surprise. Initially, my character and Lucia Micarelli’s, my girl in the story in the beginning, we weren’t in the pilot. But they added us as soon as the show got picked up. We were the little surprise. I came out of Europe, and she had never worked on a show before. She’s a musician. I owe so much to that show, because even though it wasn’t hugely successful commercially, it was very well received and gave me the time to get my feet on the ground in the U.S. as a foreign actor. It was a perfect entry into the industry here.
Capone: I loved seeing the actress that played Linh [his character’s second girlfriend] in INHERENT VICE.
MH: Oh, she’s in INHERENT VICE?
Capone: She has a substantial role in INHERENT VICE.
MH: Oh my god. That’s so cool.
Capone: It’s coming out on DVD next week. You should definitely see it. She plays a character named Jade.
MH: It’s on my list. I was watching the trailer again on the plane. Oh my god.
Capone: With ADALINE, when you first read this part, was there something about Ellis that really jumped out at you, either something you identified with or something you thought, “I get this guy.”
MH: I thought it was going to be fun to try and undercut and make this guy a likable guy, because he’s so perfect that I was afraid that there was a chance there of it being too much. Let’s put it that way. He’s young, he’s successful, he’s an entrepreneur, he fixes his own apartment, he’s Mr. Perfect. So I thought this was a great character to play and to make him likable and to ground him—and to do that opposite Blake Lively in such a beautiful story, with Harrison Ford playing my dad.
Capone: We’ll get to that.
MH: [laughs] There were a lot of reasons why I wanted to be part of this movie. I’m so happy that I got to do it.
Capone: When you’re handed the part of a perfect guy, do you immediately start going, “Okay, we have to find places to make him a little less perfect. A little more human.”
MH: Yeah, of course.
Capone: He seems a little pushy, a little too aggressive maybe in the beginning.
MH: Yes, in his pursuing of her. Yeah, I agree. And also, that could easily feel a little creepy.
[both laugh]
Capone: Borderline, yes.
MH: I didn’t have a lot of opportunities to show his flaws, which I’m sure he has. I thought a way to go is by grounding him, make sure he wasn’t too sure of himself. He’s pretty impressed by this woman.
Capone: This is about as pure and uncut as romance films get these days. It’s really a drama with this love story at the center. It’s almost a tragedy in certain places, especially when you start to realize that what’s going on with her is a curse in a way. It might have been fun for a couple of decades, but then everyone starts to die around her.
MH: That’s also why she is starting to be a little bit more open to me, because she’s getting to this point in her life when she’s probably going to survive her daughter, played by Ellen Burstyn, who also in the movie literally pushes her towards me by saying something along the lines of, “What’s a life worth living if you're always shutting the door to love?”
Capone: Was Harrison Ford on board when you signed up?
MH: Yeah. I found out he was the father character before I read the script. So I was already down with the project. But then I read the script, and really knew I wanted to be a part of it.
Capone: From the scenes that you have with him, what do you learn from working alongside a guy like that?
MH: When I look at him, I think I want to be just as passionate about what I’m doing when I’m where he is. God, if you look at his IMDB page, you can frame it—it’s awesome! So it was really cool to see this movie being, for his standards, maybe a relatively small production—it’s nothing compared to something STAR WARS. But it was not just another movie on his roster of projects. I felt like he was so down with this story and so into it and very determined to make this as good as possible.He was very intense as an actor.
Capone: And that’s appropriate for the character, too.
MH: Of course, it’s appropriate for the character. I don’t know if he’s always that way, but that was my experience on the set. I loved it, because it kept me on my toes, and I also feel like the movie does that. It shifted into another gear when he came on.
Capone: With Blake Lively, I’ve seen her in things on television and movies, but this is the best thing she’s ever done as an actor, far and away, even down to even the way she speaks, the way she holds herself. It does feel like someone who has had 100 years to learn certain behaviors and to gain knowledge and become wise. What did you get from working with her?
MH: I don’t know if I really realized how she did it, because there is a certain way of Adaline, a woman who’s 107 years old in the body of a 29-year-old, holds herself. And I thought that she found a really nice way of doing that. It wasn’t until we started doing some press, and both of us are answering these questions and are analyzing more what we did, that I started to learn what she did. You never do that when you’re working together. One of the things she said…and it just resonated with me, and I thought that’s exactly what I saw you do, and I love it.
Portraying a woman who traveled through time and has lived through all these decades, she decided to stick with the period in which her character, what she called, “came of age,” which was the 1920s. So certain characteristics, she would hold on to. There are iconic ideas that we have of a lady who came of age in the 1920s. She added on characteristics from all the different decades. It’s not like a transplant all of a sudden from the 1920s landed in the now. But I think it turned out so nicely balanced. I’m buying that she’s this old person. I love that I’ve heard a couple times now from people who have seen early screenings, that “Wow!” She surprised me in a positive way. I’m looking forward to seeing what the audience thinks about her once it starts going out.
Capone: I wonder if she’ll commit that much to everything else she does from this point forward? That would be a good step.
MH: Yes. Well also, you need the material and the movie maker, and then to get ahold the material that really allows for that to happen.
Capone: In the broader sense of your career, you have been very fortunate to be paired with some extraordinary women in the last couple of years.
MH: Yes, I have. That’s an understatement [laughs].
Capone: Do you ever just pinch yourself and go, “Really? If I have to.” Someone has to do it, right?
MH: Exactly. Tough job; someone has to do it. But you’re right. It’s a pretty insane list if you look at it from that perspective. The women I’ve worked with in the last two years are all super talented, and they’re all where they are for a reason. I think they’re all very different, and they’re all very talented, but they’re also very driven, fun to work with. Without that, maybe you don’t get where you want to be.
Capone: I just realized yesterday as I was preparing for this interview that I think this might be the first time that I’ve ever, in a matter of a couple of days, seen an actor naked, and then had to talk to them [in the season premiere of “Game of Thrones,” Huisman shows a great deal of naked ass].
MH: [laughs] Is it awkward?
Capone: It is a little awkward, but not uncomfortable. Well, congratulations on that, first of all. The premiere was great, and you had a couple great scenes in that episode. I love that relationship, because they both try to play it cool, like it’s casual sex, but I can tell your character really likes her, enjoys helping her, and he’s not afraid of her. Tell me about that relationship and what you love most about it.
MH: Well, I think the fact that he’s not afraid of her is one of the things maybe that attracts her to him. Toward the end of last season, I don’t know if you remember that, Danny sent away Jorah. That will free up a lot of space in Danny’s close circle of advisors. As I just came back from my mission in Yunkai in the beginning of this season, I will all of a sudden there’s more space for Daario to give his advice. He’s a very skilled mercenary, fighter, killer. I don’t know if he should be the one giving political advice. But some of the things he says really hit home for her.
For me to be able to play that character is so cool on so many levels. It’s not only that he’s a sexy guy and the cool guy that takes down the champion on the horse with one single blow, but also, god, these guys are giving me such epic lines. Telling the Mother of Dragons that a Dragon Queen without dragons is not a queen. That’s awesome. That’s what you want to say to her.
Capone: You came in at the last season, so I’m guessing you didn’t have a whole lot of time to school yourself on the history and the backstory of this world. But in getting ready for this new season, did you prepare? Did you read up and school yourself?
MH: Yeah, in the interim of this season, I started reading the first book just for fun, because I wanted to know how the book and the series relate to each other and how to translate it. If you never read the books, you don’t know how it’s constantly told from a different point of view, for example. But by now, without spoiling anything, I can tell you that in season five, we’re more and more off the books. I think the preparation is more about understanding the material that the producers and the writers are giving me and working that out with them and the directors.
Capone: Thank you very much, sir. Best of luck with this.
