FREE now and never miss the top Royal stories again. SUBSCRIBE Invalid email Sign up fornow and never miss the top Royal stories again. We will use your email address only for sending you newsletters. Please see our Privacy Notice for details of your data protection rights.

The 40-year-old made no secret of her feelings for her character in a recent interview: “It was very hard to defend her for a long time, I was struggling hard. But I was very happy when there was that moment when she actually confesses she was wrong and that made her human for me. “And as an actor that was the nicest thing to play, to finally let that bubble break a little bit. To show some sort of vulnerability,” she added about her upcoming storylines in season 7. Returning to the set only six weeks after her baby was born, the actress wasn’t shy about revealing how difficult it was to continue filming the dark and shocking scenes that the show is known for. “I don’t think I could’ve done the scene with Shireen,” she said about the harrowing moment when Stannis Baratheon’s daughter gets burned at the stake.

HBO The actress who plays the Red Woman has revealed how difficult it was to return to Game of Thrones

HBO Carice van Houten has received mixed favour from fans for her character

HBO Cersei sits on the coveted Iron Throne in a still of the new season

I remember reading it and I thought this was the worst scene I ever shot. Carice van Houten

“I remember reading it and I thought this was the worst scene I ever shot. But I couldn’t really feel what it meant, I just knew it was horrible. And now I can’t watch anything on TV with children or animals or anything - you’re just an open wound once you become a parent.” The Dutch actress even admitted to fighting with herself about coming back to work at all when she ‘broke down’ on the set not long after she’d become a mother: “It was a little too early. He was at home and I remember one scene I did, I was in the green room and I just broke apart. I just said, ‘I just want to go home to my baby’. “It all became unimportant to me. It’s a great important show but once you’ve just had a baby, nothing else really matters,” she revealed. Spoilers for the new season have been coming thick and fast after the drop of the official trailer last week. But one thing fans do know is that although principle actors may be getting more screen-time, episodes won’t be any longer than usual.

The cast of Game of Thrones in real life Tue, July 18, 2017 Game of Thrones: See what the amazing cast look like in real life. Play slideshow Getty•HBO 1 of 15 Lena Headey as Cersei Lannister

HBO van Houten in one of the difficult scenes she has had to play as Melisandre