The actor Eva Green has insisted she didn’t really mean things she said in private WhatsApp messages now being examined in a court battle, comparing them to Daniel Craig’s empty threat to slash his wrists rather than make another James Bond film.
Green, who is taking legal action over the collapse of a dystopian thriller in which she was to star, was giving evidence for a second day at the high court, where she said it was humiliating that the messages were now exposed.
Those messages included Green’s lamentation about being “obliged to take [the producer’s] shitty peasant crew members from Hampshire” after the location was switched from Ireland, which Green insisted on Monday was a reference to her desire to work with a “quality” crew paid standard rates.
The actor is suing White Lantern Films and SMC Speciality finance for her $1m (£807,000) fee she says is owed, but faces a counterclaim alleging she pulled out and breached her contract.
Green was asked at length about messages sent while she and others were at loggerheads about attempts to make A Patriot, including one in which she said that she had to “get out” and described an investor as “a fucking nightmare”.
Asked by Max Mallin KC, a barrister for the production company, if she was “accustomed to lying in casual WhatsApp messages”, Green replied: “I have a very direct way of saying things. I was not expecting to have my messages exposed in court. It is already very humiliating.”
“Sometimes you say things you don’t mean. You hate a person and say: ‘I’m going to kill this person,’ are you going to kill this person? No. It’s a cry from the heart.”
“There is the famous example of Daniel Craig saying: ‘I would rather slash my wrists than do another Bond movie,’” said Green, who starred alongside Craig in the 2006 film, Casino Royale.
“But did he slash his wrists? No, he made another Bond movie and didn’t slash his wrists. Sometimes you say things because you are under extreme pressure. They just come out. I know this story well because I know Daniel,” she added, prompting laughter from the back of the court.
The actor – who is accused of wrecking the movie when it became clear the budget was lower than expected and production values could be compromised, spoke on Tuesday about feeling “trapped” in the production, which was shut down in 2019..
Mallin put it to her that she had asked for lies to be told on her behalf by her driver, John Ward, whom she had messaged to say that the film would probably be “suspended or cancelled” and he should not reply to “total arseholes” on the production team.
In the message, she urged him not to reply to them, adding she would be sued and that she was trying to get the film located elsewhere.
“I don’t know why I said ‘sued’. It was a very emotional time. Maybe I said that out of paranoia,” said Green.
“I am not crazy. I know well what would happen if I was in breach. My reputation would be destroyed and I would never work again.”
Exchanges between Green and Mallin became increasingly fraught later in the day, as he put it to her that she had never intended to do the film, in its iteration at the time, and had engaged in a “charade” to weaken SMC’s position so she and others could acquire the film rights and shoot it elsewhere.
“I would have been forced to show up and I would have done this cheap B movie because it was in my contract,” insisted Green, referring to her belief that it was going to be done on the cheap by producers who she regarded as “incompetent”.
She said she felt “distressed” and “cornered” amid a deteriorating relationship with lead producers and the absence of preparation for a film, leading her to believe she was not in safe hands. At one point Green held her hands up to Mallin in the shape of an “A”, telling him: “It was absurd. Just absurd.”
She rejected Mallin’s suggestion that she had no intention of doing the film in its iteration with SMC and executive Jake Seal and had engaged in deception with others including its director, Dan Pringle. She insisted: “Of course we wanted to keep this film alive. It was our little baby.”
Before concluding her evidence, Green was asked by the judge, Mr Justice Michael Green, how much she had originally understood would be spent on the film. She replied that it had started off at around eight or nine million before being cut in half. But it should have still been possible to make “a beautiful film” on a low budget, she added.
The case continues.
