Eva Green interview

Eva Green, Bond girl and now star of The Golden Compass talks to marieclaire.co.uk

Fresh from giving James Bond lip in Casino Royale, French star Eva Green, 27, returns for this season's Christmas blockbuster, The Golden Compass, adapted from the first book in Philip Pullman's enchanting His Dark Materials series.

You play Serafina Pekkala, queen of the witches. How would you describe her?

I play a good witch - not the traditional witch with the long nose and the pointy hat. She's very young, very beautiful, very strong - she's a fighter - and she will protect Lyra, because she's a fighter.

Did you ever feel like you were drowning in special effects?

I didn't feel like I was drowning. There was a lot of green screen, but I had a scene with Sam Elliott and Dakota [Blue Richards], and they're human! My demon doesn't appear, so I'm not talking to any weird creatures, so it was like a normal movie for me - apart from the fact that I was suspended on wires and flying!

You acted with your Golden Compass co-star Daniel Craig in Casino Royale. Were you ever worried about being pigeonholed as the Bond girl?

I hope I will not be typecast as a Bond girl for the rest of my life. I'm very proud of being a part of the Bond family, but I don't want to be the sexy girl forever. I'm not meaning to complain but I just want to be taken seriously.

You live in England now. How has the French film industry reacted to that?

They often think I'm big-headed because I live in London. At the moment, it's a bit like that and it's not very nice. It's rather chauvinistic. Bernardo Bertolucci said to an Italian journalist that I wanted to 'kill the mother'. My mother is an actress, and very well known in France, hence I move to London to start my own life. I'm not sure it's that. They all try and figure out why I'm different.

Talking of your family, what did your father make of your very explicit work on The Dreamers?

He was shocked. He was speechless. I'm his daughter, but he should think I'm an actress and I can do things like that. But it's not his kind of cinema.

The Golden Compass opens on 30 November.