The Dutch actress’s performance in Black Book dazzled – so can kissing Tom Cruise be that hard?
It’s just after lunchtime in the plush split-level penthouse of an Amsterdam hotel, and Carice van Houten is “doing” Tom Cruise. “Carice!” she says, in that infamously clipped American accent, before giving her head a sudden bird-like tilt, and her face a focused frown of Cruise-like concentration, adding, “As long as you’re comfortable with it, let’s do it!” The 32-year-old Dutch actress is remembering her big scene, including kisses and tears, with the Hollywood megastar on the set of Valkyrie, Cruise’s new Second World War thriller. Here she stars as Nina, the loyal and long-suffering wife of Cruise’s German colonel Claus von Stauffenberg – the mastermind behind the failed plot to assassinate the Führer in July 1944. In the scene in question she bids a final yet passionate farewell to Stauffenberg, outside their family home. It’s her big moment, she explains, and it ultimately required the generous coaxing of her hyper-vigilant co-star. Hence the titter inducing impersonation (“I ha
