Michiel Huisman: flipping lenses

Game of Thrones breakout star Michiel Huisman takes on independent film roles to give his audiences more awareness — even if he has to play the bad guy.

- Mike Furey

Huisman began telling “stories that matter” in his late teens with the Dutch film, Uitgesloten (Expelled), about the shunning of a Jehovah’s Witness. He played a sexually abusive priest in Indian Horse, a film that exposed the devastating harm done to First Nation children by the Canadian residential school system. Now, he’s taking on the role of a cult leader in the woods for drama/horror, The Other Lamb, directed by Polish filmmaker MaÅ‚gorzata Szumowska.

Huisman’s character, Shepherd, is fashioned after the image of Jesus Christ, but all his followers are women (each being either his wife or daughter). When one daughter realises she is soon to become his wife, a power struggle ensues. At the core of the film is a metaphor of female resistance against a patriarchy. Huisman says, “I don’t shy away; I like it when I can be part of something that maybe is a little bigger. Even if it’s not easy or it means that I play a terrible character, it’s important to tell these stories.”

Huisman says Shepherd is “probably one of the most messed-up characters” he’s played to date. “It’s an example of a character that required me to dig a little deeper. The story starts at a point when they’ve been living off the grid for a long time. The group is becoming big and hard to sustain. [Shepherd] has a very hard time feeling that he’s failing and that he’s losing control. Of course, I have experienced nothing of this magnitude, but I feel things in life. I’ve made mistakes. That happens.”