Eva Green
In 2007, Eva Green was poised for stardom. After roles in Ridley Scott’s Crusades epic Kingdom Of Heaven and opposite rebooted Bond Daniel Craig in Casino Royale, and with the big-budget franchise-starter The Golden Compass on the way, she was riding high. But even if Compass hadn’t tanked, that likely wouldn’t have changed her plans. She probably still would have gone on to a series of eccentric, low-profile features—Franklyn, Womb, the newly released Cracks, and the upcoming Perfect Sense—that are still finding their way to these shores. She hasn’t turned her back on the mainstream, as her role as the villainess Morgan in Starz’ overheated Camelot attests; but she’d sooner take interesting roles than high-profile ones. Shortly before Cracks’ release, Green called The A.V. Club to talk about exploring her dark side, the difference between Bond and Bertolucci, and her reaction to the anti-Semitic remarks of designer John Galliano, for whom she once modeled.
The A.V. Club: Since The Golden Compass, you’ve made some fairly idiosyncratic choices, appearing in a number of small, hard-to-market movies that still haven’t been released in America. Was that a deliberate decision, after having done the Bond movie and Kingdom Of Heaven, to go smaller?
Eva Green: No, it’s just, you fall in love with the script, with a character, and then you meet the director. If you like the director, you decide to get on board. Of course, if you need the money, you do a big-budget movie, but I just fell in love with the story. It’s true it’s rather dark, but it’s a very strong story, and a great role for an actor.
AVC: Your character in Cracks, a seductive girls’-school teacher called Miss G, is a figure of awe to her students. What about Miss G seduced you?
EG: It took me a while to understand her, because she is such a unique character. I didn’t understand the psychology straight away. I read the book by Sheila Kohler, which is rather different—it’s happening in South Africa, and she’s much more masculine, she’s done weird things in the past, she’s been in an asylum before—but what helped me was the obsession she had in the book. It’s too much in the book, but it helped me understand how somebody like this functions. It’s just fascinating. I love extreme feelings and the fact that she’s madly in love with this girl. It’s nice to explore the dark sides of her, and yourself.
AVC: Camelot is a different proposition, but there’s a similar level of obsession to Morgan.
EG: Obsession with the throne maybe, yeah. She’s very determined, she has one goal: to get the throne no matter what. It’s not just to get the throne for the sake of it; she wants to be a good queen also, and to restore the pagan belief. She’s a very strong woman, kind of a Joan of Arc. Maybe in the first episode you think that she’s evil, full stop, but there’s much more behind that façade.
AVC: Cracks, like Camelot, focuses on power struggles, although they take place within the framework of a girls’ boarding school. How explicit were you about that aspect of the story?
EG: It’s interesting for the character that you see a very strong Miss G who has a lot of impact on her students, and she’s the queen in the school. Then Fiamma arrives and we discover another facet. She’s that kind of little girl, and Fiamma is actually ruling her heart, she’s becoming a bit like Blanche DuBois. That was to me the most interesting journey as an actor, to show such a difference.