It's Complicated

As Vesper Lynd in 2005's "Casino Royale," Eva Green was introduced to America as "the" Bond Girl—the one who broke 007's heart. Though her character was more multifaceted than previous Bond girls had been, the complexity barely probes the depths to which Green can go. In her new film "Cracks," Green ups her game with the complicated role of the glamorous Miss G, a mysterious instructor at a British all-girls academy in the 1930s.

Although Green didn't break through in America until "Casino Royale," she has been performing since she was a child. She grew up in France, where her mother, Marlene Jobert, acted in New Wave films in the 1960s and '70s. Green wanted to follow in her footsteps, as the youngster liked movies and performed in school productions.

"I've always been fascinated by acting, but it's really when you try and experience stuff that you really know if it's for you or not," Green says. So she set off for London as a teen to take a drama workshop. As a shy person, she found acting provided a way to channel her emotions. She loved it so much that she attended the Eva St. Paul Drama School in Paris for three years. Green notes that although her mother knew how ruthless the business could be, she always supported Green.

Green says she wishes she could just jump on a plane and shoot a two-week role, but because it takes her so much time to prepare, she can't accept every role that comes her way. "I need to give my guts to it," she says. "I just need to fall in love with the character and respect the director." Her method of preparation varies depending on the role, but she always works with her mother and her former drama teacher, Eva St. Paul. Green values her mother's advice and is always interested in "how she sees the character and what she would do in that scene."

Green also depends on her former drama teacher because, she notes, "She knows how to push the right buttons. She's very demanding." Green adds, "It's very important to discuss the role but also to see the different options of a scene because it can be done in many ways." Says Green of the lack of preparation time on films, "[Sometimes] you just show up on the day of the shoot and good luck to you. So it's wise to have like maybe three good options of how you see the scene."

While preparing for her role in "Cracks," she spent a lot of time listening to music of the '30s, especially Billie Holiday. "All the painful songs toward the end when she was kind of very desperate and not very well," Green says. And the actor watched a lot of Bette Davis movies because she felt Miss G, a former student who has never left the school, created her own persona. "She would have based her character on Marlene Dietrich or Bette Davis because she watched [their] movies," Green says.

The actor has always been intrigued with complicated characters and liked to play the evil roles in drama school. But don't get the wrong idea, she explains: "Evil evil is never interesting. It's always good to have that kind of strong weird veneer, but underneath there's something. There's always something. Miss G looks very confident, strong, quite naughty, sometimes maybe a bit mean, but she's a very fragile human being underneath."

Cracking the Audition

Green admits she can't stand auditioning. So, she says, she channeled her feelings for auditioning to perform a pivotal scene in "Cracks" in which Miss G leaves the school to go to a bakery in town and comes undone at being out of her comfort zone. Green cites Ridley Scott's Crusades drama "Kingdom of Heaven" as one of her most difficult auditions. "I had to do like five or six screen tests to convince the studios that I was the character," she says. "And Ridley was really on my side. He was pushing. And I adored him."

Of winning a role, she says, "It's like the lottery. It's like when you get it, wow, you know you've been through all that so you deserve it and it's rewarding. But when you don't get it you can't take it personally. You have to go: 'Okay, it was an exercise. I've learned from it; let's move on. Let's do another audition.' "

With "Cracks," however, the challenge was the role, not the audition. Director Jordan Scott (Ridley's daughter) approached Green and asked if they could meet and discuss the role. Green was attracted to both the script—which she says was "disturbing, unusual, unconventional, and provoking"—and the role of Miss G. "It's not very often that you have such a complex, rich role," she notes. "It's a gift." Green also had the opportunity to collaborate with the director: "We were like partners, and she was not like the director and I'm the puppet and actor. There was a real dialogue. So it was a luxury."

At the Whims of Others

Green was about to give up on her acting career during a bad experience in a theater production when a casting director persuaded her to screen test for Bernardo Bertolucci's 2003 film "The Dreamers," about a young American studying in Paris who strikes up a friendship with a French brother and sister. Green admits she was reluctant to audition. She was tired of the business and didn't believe she'd get the part. "But I went anyway, and I did several screen tests for Bertolucci and I got the part," she notes. "But I really wanted to stop acting before that. There was like a gift from God going, 'No, not now, not yet.' "

Even though Green has experienced how challenging the business of acting can be, she still loves it. "It's like a drug," she says. "It's quite masochistic. You adore acting, but you depend so much on the desire of other people. It's a pain, but when you have the luck to play an amazing part like Miss G or other stuff I've done, it's great. You feel alive and I would do anything to get this."

To keep things in perspective, she says she tries to remember that acting is a job. "It's not your life. Because of course you are using your own feelings to convey something and sometimes you can get confused, but actually it's just a job. You have to put your golden armor on. Be strong, because you'll go through walls and things, but just think of your passion. It's a hard business, but it's rewarding. And when it's rewarding, it's really rewarding. It's thrilling. It makes you feel alive."

OUTTAKES
– Is represented in America by Billy Lazarus at UTA
– Is set to play Angelique in Warner Bros.' "Dark Shadows" remake, directed by Tim Burton
– In addition to "Casino Royale," Green and Daniel Craig appeared in "The Golden Compass," although they didn't have any scenes together.