Eva Green is an intriguing conundrum and a bit of a contradiction.
While she's taken on a kind of "otherworldly" image, playing some of the darkest characters in film and television, she says she doesn't quite fit into that lifestyle because she's the opposite of her characters in real life. Is she, though?
Despite what she says, she's given herself the title of princess of the supernatural, whether she likes it or not. IndieWire says she "can strikingly combine beauty and menace," while the Telegraph says, "Whether she's stark naked or not, it's impossible to tear your gaze away from Eva Green."
It's true. There's something about her. Her haunting stare, the way she moves and talks. She doesn't have to be playing dark roles for you to notice. Jack Nicholson in The Shining made her want to become an actress. That should tell you all you need to know.
Despite What She Says, She's An Enigma
Green starred in Bernardo Bertolucci's controversial film The Dreamers, where her nude body was exposed on numerous occasions, despite being shy. She says it helps to think of it as if she's wearing a mask, but at the same time, she doesn't know how she does it. This is only one of her many self-contradictions.
She went on to succeed in Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven alongside Orlando Bloom, which was less of a surprise choice for her. She liked Egyptology as a child, so playing the Queen of Jerusalem was right up her alley. But playing her was also a contradiction. She played the Queen of the Holy Land yet found that she loved playing evil characters later on.
"I always picked the really evil roles," she said. "It’s a great way to deal with your everyday emotions."
Before going completely dark, though, she gained more success as the Bond Girl, Vesper Lynd, in Casino Royale. Like Kingdom of Heaven, she was cast weeks before filming.
Suddenly, playing the sexy, seductive femme fatale witch became her specialty, especially in films like Golden Compass, Dark Shadows, and Camelot. Then she played the demon-possessed clairvoyant Vanessa Ives in Penny Dreadful. When she wasn't playing dark characters, she still appeared in period films like 300: Rise of an Empire, The Salvation, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. Now she stars in The Luminaries, where more of the occult happens.
The Supernatural Drives Her, But She Doesn't Like Being Typecast
The reason for so many supernatural roles may stem from her beliefs. Despite having "nothing in her background" that "prepared her for this attitude to the supernatural," she told the Guardian that she is spiritual.
"I don’t believe in God, but I believe in something more," she said. "I believe there are things or energies beyond the everyday. I don’t know. I sound like a fucking weirdo. It’s tricky to talk about these things."
Her beliefs have guided her, in a way, to supernatural roles, yet she doesn't want to be typecast. "I will have to do more normal roles because I don’t want to be put in a box marked 'weird witch.' People around me say: You must stop doing dark roles."
"But there’s something fascinating in darkness," she continued. "You learn about yourself as well by going to these extremes as an actor. Perhaps I should see a shrink." She doesn't take characters like Ives home with her, though. "Can you imagine being in character the whole time? Ugh. I would go to an asylum." But that doesn't stop her from "reveling" in playing "a character in psychic meltdown."
Green thinks she's survived in the business because her characters are the complete opposite of her.
"I’m quiet – boring even – in real life," she confessed. "Nothing like the mad witches I play. And I’m still getting fun from it, the sort of fun a child gets from doing something they love, and that is a little bit naughty."
Green told W magazine that people have an image of her being "otherworldly, of being weird, that I could kind of communicate with the spirits. I don't know, maybe it's my dark hair or maybe because I don't talk much. So they kind of put me in the, you know, weirdo box."
"I wouldn't want to conjure spirits, no." This is also a contradiction because she has in therapy no less.
She Uses Tarot As A Form Of Therapy
Among all the other confusing, contradictory things about Green's life, she uses a very supernatural form of therapy, once again contradicting her notion that she's nothing like her characters.
She became interested in tarot card-reading while on the set of Penny Dreadful and says it's taught her a lot, so much so that she considers it a form of therapy. "If it is done properly, it teaches you things about yourself. It is fast-forward therapy."
Along with her unorthodox therapy sessions, she also loves astrology, hence her choice to play Lydia Wells in The Luminaries, taxidermy, and entomology, and likes to collect preserved skulls and insects. She also meditates and dresses like a vampire.
So it doesn't really make sense that she doesn't get why people put her in her little box. Her whole personality is dark, not so different, from her characters. Granted, she's not evil, but still.
Green may be a bit of a weirdo (her words), but we love her weirdness. We just can't understand some of her enigmatic ways. Ultimately, she's her own worst enemy. She should just cut the confusion and continue to do what she's doing or play different roles. Either way, we love traveling to new fantastical worlds with her. She could spew green slim in our faces, and we would still love her.