Eva Green, born on July 6, 1980 in Paris as the daughter of an actress and a dentist, celebrated her breakthrough in 2003 with Bernardo Bertolucci's “The Dreamers” before she began filming mainly in English-speaking countries. Her best-known films include "Kingdom of Heaven" by Ridley Scott, the James Bond film "Casino Royale" and the sequels "300: Rise of an Empire" and "Sin City 2". She was in front of Tim Burton's camera for “Dark Shadows”, “The Island of Special Children” and “Dumbo”, and she was nominated for the Golden Globe for the series “Penny Dreadful”. The London-by-choice can now be seen on German screens in the lead role in the French production "Proxima", which earned her a nomination for César in her home country.
Miss Green, in “Proxima” you play an astronaut shortly before a one-year mission to the ISS. Have you dreamed of the stars in the past?
The stars, the planets and the unknown expanses of space actually fascinated me from an early age.
Which I probably share with most other people.
However, I never wanted to be an astronaut, not least because I am terribly afraid of heights.
But excitingly enough, “Proxima” is not so much about the fascination of the stars.
This is not one of those films that glorifies travel into space, but really a look at the tough everyday life and the arduous training of the people who in reality take these hardships on themselves.
And was it that aspect that made you take on the role?
I found it at least as exciting that the love story between a mother and her daughter is told here.
The fact that for this woman the passion for her job and the love for her daughter have to be reconciled again and again and also stand in each other's way, I found very interesting as a conflict.
Almost every film that tells of female astronauts also takes up the topic of motherhood. So isn't the conflict a little too obvious?
A mother who has to leave her child behind to fly into space - that is of course a very tangible picture of a situation that many working women can identify with. Because the compatibility of job and family is an issue nowadays too, and many women feel a certain amount of guilt when their children have to stand back in favor of their careers. Indeed, the conflict seems to be very present in space travel. I have spoken to several astronauts who do not even tell in their professional environment that they have children. They fear that they will then be labeled as weak and less resilient. Then the men in the group of colleagues proudly show photos of the offspring and the women are silent. How bitter! For my part, I think that womenwho want both and also implement them, are real superheroes, because our society actually still has other plans.
You have often filmed with children. Is that as much of a challenge as you always hear?
At least it always inspires me a lot of respect.
Simply because children are so direct - and you can rarely fool them.
I always have to get used to that and that's why I'm usually more nervous at first than the child actors.
How well the work then ultimately goes is usually less a matter of luck than it depends on how much you can rehearse and how well the cast was made.
In the case of “Proxima”, it was worth gold that our director Alice Winocour discovered little Zélie.