Eva Green talks about Vesper, evil roles and love scenes

28-Mar-2006 • Casino Royale

She's the new Bond girl, she's sultry, beautiful and French and she's currently getting us all in a flutter. Her favourite actor, apparently, is Ed Norton - reports Total Film.

"She had black hair, blue eyes and splendid, er, protuberances" - Ian Fleming, Casino Royale, 1953.

It's 50-odd years since Ian Fleming, with typical schoolboy vigour, introduced the world to Vesper Lynd: the first Bond girl. Now the word is made flesh. Well, almost. In the crisp light of a spring London morning, Eva Greenâs hair looks dark brown rather than black and the aquamarine eyes perhaps a shade more green than blue. But, even in her buttoned-down black shirt, there's no disputing that her 'protuberances' are indeed splendid. Which will hardly be news to anyone who's seen The Dreamers, Bernardo Bertolucci's lusty love letter to the French New Wave and Green's spotlight-providing movie debut. Playing the coquettish Isabelle, she spent much of the film in various states of undress, protuberances very much on display. (Await the "Double-O-Heaven" screen grabs in a tabloid near you soon...)

Of course, Casino Royale's producers insist it was more the naked talent on view that led them to Green (pronounced Clouseau-style, 'Greyne'). After all, Vesper has to be not only attractive enough to lure Bond, but smart enough to keep him guessing which side she's on.

"It takes much more than beauty to make the role of Vesper work," claims Columbia Pictures chairman Amy Pascal. "She is pivotal to CR. When you think about great Bond adventures, of course you think about action and espionage, but you need to have palpable sexual tension. Especially as the character is very much an equal of Bond and central to the story. We believe that Eva is perfect."

"That's nice," says the 'perfect' Eva in a surprisingly clipped English accent. "But I don't get carried away. Things have gone well for me so far but with acting you always depend on the desires of others. You're hot or you're not. After each movie it's like beginning all over again."

The philosophical attitude comes from her mother, French actress Marlene Jobert (who was in Godard's Masculin, Feminin). "She thinks acting can be a cruel profession," admits Green. "And for years, I wouldn't even acknowledge to myself that I wanted to be an actress. I was afraid of measuring up. But acting is a way of going beyond myself - you know, I have blood in my veins when I am someone else."

Even when someone else is the duplicitous, if delectable, Vesper Lynd?

"Definitely! At drama school, I always picked the evil roles like Lady Macbeth. It's great, it helps you deal with everyday emotions more coherently."

So Bond's typically PG-sex scenes are probably not going to prove a stretch either...

"Well I had a love scene in Kingdom of Heaven and Ridley Scott wanted me to expose a nipple or something but he couldn't ask me himself. He is so British, really shy. He had to go through many people. They were like, 'Would you show a little something?' I said, 'You know what? I can show whatever you want!' I think working with Bernado had helped me lose my inhibitions..."

Thanks to `Du$ty:59` for the alert.