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Paris-born actress Eva Green has prompted outrage in her native France after blaming a series of insults directed at film producers on her ‘Frenchness’.
The former Bond girl, 42, is embroiled in a bitter legal battle with the makers of the £4.6million movie ‘A Patriot’, with each side blaming the other for the production’s demise in October 2019. She is suing White Lantern Films for her fee of $1million (£810,000) – even though the movie was never made.
When several of her vitriolic WhatsApp messages about the film’s director, producers and production staff were read out before the court, Green retorted: ‘I have a very direct way of saying things… It’s my Frenchness coming out sometimes.’
Her declaration that her unpleasant messages – in which she referred to production crewmembers as ‘sh***y peasants’ and called a production manager ‘a moron’ and a ‘complete a***hole’ – were down to her French roots angered many of her compatriots.
French actress Eva Green arrives at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, Britain, 31 January 2023
Green was pictured yesterday arriving at the Rolls Building, London, for her High Court legal action over payment for a shuttered film project. She later blamed a series of insulting messages about various members of the film crew on her ‘Frenchness’
‘The worst excuse in the world. It’s like people who justify their faults based on their star sign,’ one person quipped.
‘I am French and do not insult anyone publicly! This is down to respect and education! Sorry Marlene Jobert (Green’s mother)…’ said another disgruntled French user.
‘Thanks for the international image,’ added Frederic Says from Radio France.
Other enraged users piled vile insults on Green, with one promptly asking that she in turn excuse their ‘French side’.
Green today admitted she had been ‘humiliated’ by the release of her foul-mouthed WhatsApp messages, and also spoke about her friendship with Daniel Craig.
She pointed out that people often say things they don’t mean, citing Craig’s onetime assertion that he would rather ‘slash his wrists’ than be 007 again.
The British star, 54, made the comment in a 2015 interview after breaking a leg filming his penultimate 007 movie Spectre.
Mr Craig later accepted he appeared ‘ungrateful’ but said the remark was made in jest.
Craig went on to play the British spy once more in No Time To Die, completing a run of five films.
Green insists she did not sabotage the production of A Patriot or walk out on the film, and told the court: ‘I have a very direct way of saying things.
‘I was not expecting to have my WhatsApp messages exposed in court. It’s already very humiliating.’
Green’s assertion that her ‘Frenchness’ was to blame for her vitriolic messages enraged many of her countrymen (these tweets have been translated from French)
Eva Green arrives at the Rolls Building on January 31, 2023 in London, England
Green insists she did not sabotage the production of A Patriot or walk out on the film, and told the court: ‘I have a very direct way of saying things.
‘I was not expecting to have my WhatsApp messages exposed in court. It’s already very humiliating.’
Cross-examined by Max Mallin, KC, for White Lantern, about one message in which she called her experience of working on the film a ‘f***ing nightmare’, she said: ‘Sometimes you say things you don’t mean. You hate someone and say I’m going to kill someone, but are you really going to kill that person? No.
‘There’s the famous example of Daniel Craig saying, ‘I’d rather slash my wrists than do another Bond movie’. But did he slash his wrists? No, he made another Bond movie.’
To laughter from the public gallery, Green added: ‘I know this story because I know Daniel Craig.’
French actor Eva Green (R) departs the Royal Courts of Justice in London, Britain, 30 January 2023 alongside her lawyer Edmund Cullen. Green is suing White Lantern Films production company over unpaid salary which she claims was due for the film ‘A Patriot’ after the movie was eventually cancelled
Green’s barrister Edmund Cullen KC (pictured left behind Green) said that the legal battle was ‘designed to paint my client as a diva to win headlines and damage her reputation’
At the start of the trial on Thursday, Mallin claimed that Green had an ‘animosity’ towards a vision for the film held by one of the film’s executive producers, Jake Seal.
The barrister said that in exchanges with her agent and the film’s director, Green also branded production manager Terry Bird as a ‘f****** moron’, and local crew members as ‘sh***y peasants… from Hampshire’.
However, Green’s barrister Edmund Cullen KC said that the legal battle was ‘designed to paint my client as a diva to win headlines and damage her reputation’.
Cullen later said that the messages ‘must be seen in context’ of negotiations over buying the rights to the script.
Green earlier claimed she had hoped it would be possible for her to acquire the script rights – in return for her forgoing her fee – so the film could be made elsewhere with a different team.
But she said she knew she would have no choice but to go ahead with the film otherwise.
Describing the film as a ‘passion project’, Cullen said the actress ‘bent over backwards’ to make the film but ‘the financial plan was never going to work’.
Green also alleged the production team were cutting corners, including on stunt training, prompting her to draw comparisons to the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins last year on the set of Alec Baldwin film Rust.
Green told the court in London that producer Seal had cut down her stunt training for the film – where she was set to play a soldier – from four weeks to five days.
Actress Eva Green filming near Tower Bridge in October 2019
Giving evidence, Ms Green referred to a fatal shooting on the set of Alec Baldwin’s film Rust (right), in which cinematographer Halyna Hutchins (left) lost her life
‘You can’t make a quality film by cutting corners,’ Green said.
She continued: ‘You look at what happened with Alec Baldwin on the movie Rust, the producers were cutting corners, no safety measures and a young woman got killed.’
In her written evidence to the court, Green said no personal training or stunt training was arranged for her, despite her efforts to follow this up with the production team.
She also said she ‘fell in love’ with the film, in which she was cast as soldier Kate Jones, after reading writer and director Dan Pringle’s ‘brave and daring’ script.
She said in her witness statement: ‘As I have said repeatedly, I fell deeply in love with this project – not only the role, but also the message of the film.
‘I couldn’t imagine abandoning the film, as it would have been like abandoning my baby.
‘It still feels that way.’
The actress denied the allegations that she was not prepared to go ahead with the project, saying: ‘In the 20 years that I have been making films, I have never broken a contract or even missed one day of shooting.’