Eva Green is a French actress and model. She acts primarily in movies. She played Vesper Lynd in the 2006 movie Casino Royale. She achieved international recognition with her smokey eye, when she starred as Sibylla, Queen of Jerusalem in Ridley Scott’s historical epic Kingdom of Heaven (2005). In 2006, Green was awarded the BAFTA Rising Star Award.
Eva Green was born on July 6, 1980, in Paris, France. Her father, Walter Green, is a dentist who appeared in the 1966 film Au Hasard Balthazar (1966). Her mother, Marlène Jobert, is an actress turned children’s book writer. Eva’s mother was born in Algeria, of Sephardi Jewish heritage (during that time, Algeria was part of France), and Eva’s father is of Swedish, French, and Breton descent. She has a fraternal twin sister, Joy.
Eva left French school at 17. She switched to English in Ramsgate, Kent, and went to the American School in France for one year. She studied acting at Saint Paul Drama School in Paris for three years, then had a 10-week polishing course at the Weber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London. She also studied directing at the Tisch School of Arts at New York University. She returned to Paris as an accomplished young actress, and played on stage in several theater productions: “La Jalousie en Trois Fax” and “Turcaret”.
Since her school years, Green has been a cosmopolitan multilingual and multicultural person. Yet, since her father always lived in France with them and her mother, she and her twin sister can’t speak Swedish. She developed a wide scope of interests beyond her acting profession and became an aspiring art connoisseur and an avid museum visitor. Her other activities, outside of acting, include playing and composing music, cooking at home, walking her terrier, and collecting art. She shares time between her two residencies, one is in Paris, France, and one in London, England.
Green appeared on stage in Jalousie en Trois Fax (2001) for which she was nominated for a Molière Award. She also appeared in Turcaret (2002).
Her first film debut in 2003 in Bernardo Bertolucci’s controversial film The Dreamers. When she appeared in Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven in 2005 and portrayed Vesper Lynd in the James Bond film Casino Royale in 2006 she achieved international recognition. In 2006 she has starred in independent films Womb in 2010, Perfect Sense in 2011 and Cracks in 2011 and she has also appeared in the television series named Camelot in 2011.
Green was named as the 6th sexiest actress of all-time in 2007. She was ranked at 57th position in the list of Hot 100 by AfterEllen. She has also been the face of advertisement campaigns for Breil, Emporio Armani, Heineken, Montblanc among others. She is an active promoter of UNICEF.
In addition to her acting career, Green did endorsements for Montblanc, Breil, Emporio Armani, Lancôme, Heineken, and Christian Dior’s “Midnight Poison” perfume, in an advert directed by Wong Kar-wai.
Green portrayed the witch Serafina Pekkala in the 2007 film adaptation of The Golden Compass. She found it difficult being flown on a harness because of her fear of heights, which led her to refuse to reshoot a scene on her last day of filming. Green hoped the religious themes of the book would be preserved, but references to Catholicism were removed from the film. Green next appeared in Franklyn, as the tormented artist Emilia, (who Green compared to real-life figures Sophie Calle and Tracey Emin) and the mysterious Sally, who she described as, "full of life, very witty, big sense of humor". She also filmed Cracks, the directorial debut of Jordan Scott, Ridley Scott's daughter, where she plays a teacher at a girls' school named Miss G, who falls in love with one of her pupils. In March 2009, she appeared in Womb, where she plays a woman who clones her dead boyfriend. It is a collaboration between actor Matt Smith and director Benedek Fliegauf.
She was considered for the role eventually played by Cécile de France in Un Secret (2007). Additionally, she was initially approached for the female lead in Lars von Trier's controversial film Antichrist (2009). According to Trier, Green was positive about appearing in the film, but her agents refused to allow her. The unsuccessful casting attempt took two months of the film's pre-production process. Anglo-French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg was subsequently cast in the role. Green later said that she got along well with Trier, "but then we started talking about nudity and sex and so on. It got a bit too far ... It was my dream to work with him, but it’s a shame it was on that film that it nearly happened. I’m sure I would have been trashed doing that film".
Green starred in the first season of Starz's series, Camelot, as the sorceress Morgan le Fay. Green stated, "This is such an iconic story and you have 10 episodes to explore a character. It's not a girlfriend role that you could have in a movie. It's a real ballsy character. She has some guts." In 2012, Green played a vengeful witch Angelique Bouchard who curses Johnny Depp's character into a vampire in Tim Burton's Dark Shadows. In 2014, she played Artemisia in the 300 sequel, 300: Rise of an Empire. Since May 2014, Green starred in the Showtime series Penny Dreadful as Vanessa Ives. She played the titular role Ava Lord in the Sin City sequel, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014).
In 2016, Green reunited with Tim Burton in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, a film based on the 2011 novel by Ransom Riggs.
