Eva Green in The Daily Mail

Appearing in last Sunday's Daily Mail You Magazine was French actress Eva Green. Looking stunning, as usual, Eva appeared in a photo shoot and interview for the mag.

Part of the article by Maureen Paton -

I’m expecting her to be more than slightly scary as she turns up at her publicist’s Soho office in figure-hugging black, but she politely and firmly sends the PR away so that we can be alone.

There’s clearly no messing with Eva, who fixes me with a stare and opens a packet of crisps as she speaks her mind on such subjects as Hollywood hype, why she eclipses golden girl Charlize Theron, Carla Bruni’s frumpy clothes and the ‘ridiculous’ rumour that linked Eva romantically to the French president Nicolas Sarkozy (of which more later).

Cripes. A Bond girl with attitude who eats crisps – whatever next?

Although the little heart-shaped face is softer in real life than in photos, it’s still a relief when she smiles, which she does frequently and warmly.

I can see why Empire magazine called Eva, 28, one of ‘the 100 sexiest stars’, and why she came 16th in Maxim magazine’s hot list. ‘That’s because of Bond,’ retorts Eva with a scornful pout. ‘I don’t take that sort of thing seriously.’

She’s meeting me to publicise her role as an ambassador for Montblanc jewellery and watches, whose advertisements show Eva with an Arctic gaze.

It’s quite a transformation for someone who was so shy as a child that she ‘hugged the walls’ at school and was sent for therapy by her mother, a former actress who gave up the business to rear Eva and her twin Joy and to write children’s books.

So confident has Eva become that at first she turned down the part of Vesper. ‘I didn’t want to audition at first because I thought, “Bond girl – oh God,”’ she says, rolling her eyes at the cliché. ‘But then they gave me the script and it was different from what I had expected, so I agreed to audition.’ Yet she’s honest enough to admit that the experience of being a leading lady in such an iconic movie turned out to be daunting. ‘It’s always scary to act – you are always worried you are going to be fired,’ she says.

Bilingual Eva does her own thing in the capital instead. She likes the freewheeling style of London, which she considers ‘less judgmental’ than Paris.

Her gothic style often gets her compared to Helena Bonham Carter. She first developed a taste for all things goth when she started dying her dark blond hair blue-black at 15. One fashion editor nicknamed her Morticia Addams for arriving at a fashion event in ‘shockingly bad Givenchy’. But such crimes against blandness don’t bother Eva at all. ‘When I’m at an event, I like to be an eccentric dresser. I will just keep wearing what I like,’ she shrugs.

It was the high profile that Bond gave her that led to the Montblanc campaign, which Eva agreed to do because she felt ‘they are very human – they are interested in you, there’s a real dialogue, which is very rare’. She also liked the links with children’s charity Unicef, which the brand supports, as her mother had worked with them back in the 60s.

But the Bond fame has also brought unwelcome publicity, such as a report that she had turned down the French president. ‘I have never met the man,’ she expostulates. ‘The whole thing is ridiculous, though funny. People like to criticise Sarkozy and put him down by saying he approached many actresses before marrying Carla [Bruni]. I wish Carla well, and it’s good that the first lady is cool.

'But she used to wear jeans the whole time – and now she has to wear these granny outfits!’ adds Eva, pulling a face at the memory of Carla’s boxy meet-the-queen suit.

Her own partner is Marton Csokas, a New Zealand actor she met on the set of Kingdom of Heaven. ‘It can be difficult to keep a relationship going when you’re apart filming, but we both understand it’s a crazy business.

'Love scenes are never really pleasant to film, and he’s intelligent enough to understand that – but he doesn’t say what he thinks of mine. He did one himself with Charlize Theron [in the 2005 film Aeon Flux], but it didn’t worry me because I’m better looking than she is,’ she adds wickedly.

It’s nice to see that Eva has learned how to do British irony as well as French intensity, and that Brit actor of the moment Sam Riley, her co-star in the forthcoming sci-fi thriller Franklyn, made her laugh so much during filming ‘that it was really difficult to keep a straight face’.

So there’s a light side as well to this dramatic lady, as she pads off in her leather flip-flops to a nearby Japanese restaurant for lunch.

As she explains with a farewell grin, ‘Life’s too short to wear high heels.’

For more pics and the whole article see the Daily Mail Website