Game of Thrones' star teases her character's future: 'She's not the old Melisandre yet

In one spine-tingling scene in the final minutes of last week's "Game of Thrones" episode, Melisandre became a hero to millions of fans.

"I'm loving it!" Carice van Houten told Business Insider of the fanfare after her character resurrected Jon Snow (Kit Harington).

"It's really great going from the most-hated character on the show to the most-loved character," she continued. "It's really funny."

After the scene was over, van Houten found herself in the middle of a Twitter hurricane. She said fans were taking images of Melisandre and topping her head with fun caps, drawing marijuana joints hanging from her mouth, and sunglasses over her eyes. And van Houten enjoyed every bit of it.

"After all this time, I'm one of the cool guys instead of being that awful, evil witch that I was before," she told us. "And the reactions I like best are the people who actually appreciate the acting and the vulnerability in the acting, which I quite like to do. And the fact that they appreciate characters being more dimensional. There's no good and evil. I don't believe in that."

But while the actress is having the best time, the same can't be said for her character. Melisandre is still suffering from a lack of confidence, even after bringing back Jon Snow.

"This is definitely going to give her a little boost, but she's not back yet," van Houten said. "It was a big identity crisis we started with. Yes, it gives her some points, but she's not the old Melisandre yet."

The actress probably didn't realize her use of the word "old" in that sentence, but fans will surely catch it and wonder if there's some meaning there.

On the season premiere, a broken-down Melisandre took off her signature necklace to reveal the haggard body of a centuries-old woman.

Careful fans immediately observed, however, that Melisandre was once seen before without her necklace, in a bathtub, and looked normal. That might be as simple as a continuity error, or there could be more to it.

"There's so much mystery and magic around this woman, we'll figure out what that's about," van Houten said of the necklace question. "That's a question for the writers. They know way more than me. They'll have the perfect answer."