It is not difficult to imagine the French actress Eva Green in the skin of a dark and devious character. So much so, that in the end she has had no choice but to embrace the cliché: “I like torment”, she admits.
Tim Burton's muse, "femme fatale" who seduced James Bond like nobody else, Green (39 years old) changes register in her latest film to put on the suit of an astronaut who must face the separation from her 7-year-old daughter to undertake a star travel.
In “Proxima”, directed by Alice Winocour and awarded the Special Jury Prize at the last San Sebastian Festival, the actress plays Sarah, with as much sobriety as solvency, a mother who tries not to give up her professional dream while leaving planet Earth to her daughter in the care of her ex-partner.
“I like conflict situations, complex characters that seem strong from the outside but have a lot of cracks. They are extreme dilemmas: I stay with my daughter or pursue my dream. I like the torment”, she assures in an interview with various international media, including EFE.
Still, Green believes audiences will have an easier time relating to this character—“any working mom can do it”—than the more eccentric roles she's played before her in her career.
Whoever approaches "Proxima" in search of a science-fiction story may be disappointed. It is rather an intimate film that explores the relationship between a mother and her daughter. And yet, at the same time, few films better portray the reality of astronauts before leaving for space.
“Creating that intimacy with the girl (played by Zélie Boulant-Lemesle) was my biggest challenge. I was afraid of not being credible. I didn't want to be corny, but I was wondering if she was being too cold, ”reflects Green, who is not a mother in real life.
The director, Alice Winocour, confesses to EFE that she sought out Green for that role precisely because she did not have children, so that she "tried to be the best possible mother on screen, as happens to me in real life."
For the actress, “all working mothers have that feeling of guilt and often repress their own desires to accommodate their children. This movie tells you, 'Don't be a perfect mother. I only have one dog, and it's hard enough dealing with that!"
Perhaps she is due to her gothic roles in Tim Burton movies. Maybe it's because of her mysterious and captivating physique. It may respond to her introverted and cerebral character. For any of these reasons, the French actress (she owes her surname to her father of Swedish origin) has been typecast as a shady person.
"Many people perceive that I am dark, I hear it so much that I have to hug it," she admits, in an interview in which the only thing dark is the lighting of the hotel room where she is celebrated. She, on the contrary, is shown as an affable and cordial woman.
Shot at the European Space Agency, the Russian training center in Star City, outside Moscow, and the Baikonur Cosmodrome (Kazakhstan), Green had to endure the harshness of a Russian instructor whose mission was to make them feel truly at home. the skin of an astronaut.
“It was amazing to shoot in Star City and in Baikonur, like stepping into a Star Wars dimension. (Although) the Russian instructor scolded me several times, I think I made a mistake in the protocol and he got very angry… ”, recalls Green, laughing, who admits that she would have been unable to be an astronaut because she is terrified of heights.
“The commander of the International Space Station, Luca Parmitano, was in Star City during the filming, and he is in love with Eva, he even had a poster of her in the room. He was so impressed to see Eva, and he sees that she has a lot of self-control, that she was about to pass out! ”, She assures.
Despite having a long career since Bernardo Bertolucci catapulted her into "Dreamers" (2003), she continues to get nervous at the start of filming - "the first day I always carry five bottles of natural therapies" - and now that her name sounds to the nominations for the César awards for French cinema try to avoid flattery.
“I can't look at the reviews. You always believe the bad ones more than the good ones. If it's bad I think I'm terrible. But if I see a good one I think: 'No, she's wrong, she's being too nice. But even if the film is not well received, if the experience has been enriching, on my deathbed I will remember.
