Michiel Huisman

The Supporting Actor Who Never Asked for Permission

Michiel Huisman isn't the typical actor desperate for the spotlight. In 2010, he decided to move to New Orleans to film Treme, and from that moment on he stopped living in the Netherlands. Before that, he was already a familiar face at home for his work on Goede tijden, slechte tijden during the 1990s, but the European market soon felt too small for him.

Paul Verhoeven got a golden opportunity in 2006 with a role in Black Book. That film about the Dutch resistance was the perfect showcase, as it let him work with Carice van Houten. Although his role wasn't the lead, the magnetism he brought to the screen caught the attention of several American agents.

But his career didn't start with scripts; it started with music. He played guitar and sang in the band Fontane, and that musical side is what won him his first major contract in American television. David Simon was looking for someone who could handle instruments to play Sonny in Treme, and Huisman fit the role effortlessly.

Music was his first escape.

In 2012, he joined the cast of Nashville as Liam McGuinnis. There, he proved once again that his bohemian musician image was a valuable asset in the Los Angeles industry. He worked on the series for two years and balanced filming with brief big-screen appearances, including in World War Z in 2013.

The Risk of Replacing a Favorite

Michiel Huisman's name went viral in 2014 thanks to a risky casting decision. The producers of Game of Thrones decided he would be the new Daario Naharis in season four. He replaced Ed Skrein, and the change was so dramatic that many viewers took weeks to accept that it was the same character.

And the gamble paid off.

Huisman brought a different maturity to the mercenary who falls for Daenerys Targaryen. He stayed with the HBO series until 2016 and appeared in a total of 21 episodes that gave him global visibility. During that period, he also found time to star in The Age of Adaline in 2015 alongside Blake Lively, playing a wealthy young man in a classic-style romantic drama.

In 2018, he made a major splash with the premiere of The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix. Playing Steven Crain required him to move away from his leading-man image and step into the shoes of a skeptical writer haunted by his family's past. The series was a hit with audiences and critics alike, and it changed the industry's view of his dramatic range.

The Era of Big Productions

Not everything in his career has been a success. In 2017, he starred in The Ottoman Lieutenant, and the film came and went without much notice, with very weak box office earnings. But setbacks like that didn't slow his pace of work on streaming platforms. In 2020, he joined Kaley Cuoco in The Flight Attendant, playing a murdered passenger who appears only in the protagonist's visions.

It worked.

Zack Snyder was recruited in 2023 for the ambitious space opera Rebel Moon. In this Netflix production, he played Gunnar and reprised the role in the second installment, released in 2024. Snyder's sets are known for their physical demands, and Huisman had to undergo months of military-style training to keep up with the action scenes on set.

He lives in New York with his wife, also actress Tara Elders, and their daughter. Although he has spent more than a decade in the United States, he still maintains professional ties to Europe when the project is worth it. In 2024, he finished filming The Last Front, a World War I drama shot entirely on location in Belgium.