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Èva Gaëlle Green (born July 5, 1980) is a French actress and composer.

Biography

Early life

Eva Green was born in Paris, France to a French mother and a Swedish father and raised in the 17th arrondissement of Paris. Her mother is actress Marlène Jobert; her father, Walter Green, is a Swedish dentist, who appeared in the 1966 film Au hasard Balthazar – this was his first and only on-screen appearance. She has one sibling, a fraternal twin sister, Joy. Green's name is pronounced "gren", /gre:n/ approximately rhyming with "wren" in Swedish and comes from the Swedish word gren, which means (tree) branch. She studied acting in Paris for three years, followed by a ten-week polishing course at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London, England.

Career

Theatre

Green has stated that she wanted to be an egyptologist when she was younger but loved theatre classes [1]. She left school at 16, she had good grades but 'couldn't bear school any more'. Green began her professional career in 2001, when she performed in the play Jalousie En Trois Fax, playing the role of Iris – a performance that brought her critical acclaim and a nomination for Les Molières in the category Révélation Théâtrale Féminine. In 2002, she made her second stage appearance as the coquette in the play Turcaret.

Film

In 2003, Green made her feature film debut in Bernardo Bertolucci's film The Dreamers with Michael Pitt and Louis Garrel. She played the role of Isabelle and in addition to acting, also composed the score for the film. Described by Bertolucci as "so beautiful it's indecent", her performance brought her critical acclaim, as well as some notoriety for her extensive full frontal nudity. While filming The Dreamers, Green was said to have found Bertolucci manipulative, though in a creative way that wasn't pushy. In comparison to her previous stage acting, she has said that acting in front of the camera makes you its "plaything".

She played Countess Clarisse de Dreux-Sobise in the 2004 French film, Arsène Lupin, directed by Jean-Paul Salomé and starring Romain Duris and Kristin Scott Thomas. The film received mixed reviews. In 2005, she portrayed Sibylla of Jerusalem in Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven, starring opposite Orlando Bloom as Balian, a blacksmith from Middle-Age France.

Green was cast as "Bond girl" Vesper Lynd in the James Bond film Casino Royale with new 007 actor Daniel Craig. In an interview with The Daily Telegraph magazine she admitted that "I had reservations at the beginning thinking I'll be typecast as the Bond Girl - and after The Dreamers you have to be careful". Having turned down the chance to audition a year before shooting started and undergone a first blind audition she was flown to Prague for a second audition literally days before filming commenced. Given a new script which impressed her, she accepted the role. There were reservations from the studio, concerned about her having a French accent in an English role. However Green worked on her received pronunciation and the part was hers.

She is the fifth French actress to portray a major "Bond girl" (after Claudine Auger, Corinne Clery, Carole Bouquet, and Sophie Marceau plus the uncredited appearance of Miss World 1953, Denise Perrier in Diamonds are Forever) and the first one born in the 1980s. As Vesper works for the British government, Green affected an English accent for the role.

Casino Royale was released in theaters worldwide on November 17, 2006. In May of 2006, Maxim named her #20 in its annual Hot 100 list.

Green has also joined the cast of New Line Cinema's His Dark Materials: Northern Lights, based on Phillip Pullman's novel, and directed by Chris Weitz. She will play Serafina Pekkala, the witch queen who guides Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards) on her journey to a parallel universe. Green will reunite with her Bond co-star Daniel Craig, as well as join Adam Godley and Nicole Kidman in the cast.

Ones that got away

Green met the director of The Constant Gardener but couldn't take the part of Tessa Quale due to a clash with Kingdom of Heaven, she was also interested in a part in Brian DePalma's The Black Dahlia but again it clashed with Kingdom of Heaven, though in the event filming was postponed.

Personal life

Green speaks both French and English fluently and currently shares her time between her residences in Paris and London. Eva has a twin sister named Joy. Green has said she's not particularly close to her sister, who attended business school and has just married an Italian count. She's currently dating Marton Csokas. They met while shooting Kingdom of Heaven, in which he played her character's husband. She previously dated French actor Yann Claassen for over four years.

Filmography

• The Dreamers (2003)
• Arsène Lupin (2004)
• Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
• Casino Royale (2006)
• His Dark Materials: Northern Lights (2007)

External links

• EvaGreenWeb.com - Fansite

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