‘Every failure of this movie has been laid at Eva Green’s door’

HOLLYWOOD star Eva Green said a legal battle with film producers over a doomed £4 million sci-fi movie is “designed to blacken her name”, as a High Court trial got under way today.

The French actress, 42, signed on to star in A Patriot alongside Helen Hunt and Charles Dance in 2019, but the project was derailed amid a falling out between Green, financial backers White Lantern, and executive producers Jake Seal and Terry Bird. Former Bond girl Green sued for her £830,000 fee, but then faced a counterclaim that she had sabotaged the film.

The trial will examine Green’s foulmouthed texts about co-workers. In an opening statement, her legal team led by Edmund Cullen KC branded the accusations “unfocused and rambling”. “It seems to be designed to blacken the name of an actor who has not breached a contract or missed a day’s shooting in a career spanning 20 years,” he said, suggesting the executive producers “have sought to lay every failure of the production at Eva Green’s door”.

Green’s team continued: “Bizarrely Eva Green is criticised extensively for her supposedly unreasonable behaviour, when in fact the documentary evidence shows her consistently striving to ensure that the Film would be of the highest possible quality, including by making repeated offers to contribute her own funds towards the hiring of suitable crew.” In messages disclosed before the trial, the star branded Mr Seal as “evil” and a “mad man”, referred to herself as “Cruella”, and called Mr Bird a “f***ing moron”. Green is accused of making unreasonable demands for hiring crew members and changing the filming schedule, but says she had those powers as an executive producer.

She is accused of pretending to be content with the production while privately looking for ways out of the movie, allegedly dubbing it “Operation Fake it”.

In reply, Green says she believed the budget was $9 million, and was “upset” when a grant was not obtained and production was moved out of Ireland.

Green is up against White Lantern Film (Britannica) Limited and a second defendant, SMC Specialty Finance LLC.

Green was not present today but is expected to give evidence on Monday.