The explicit sex scenes that left Eva Green speechless: “I was quite shocked”
Actors generally know what they’re getting themselves into when they agree to star in a film that involves sex scenes, but Eva Green was still rendered speechless when she saw them in her final form.
That says a lot, with the actor having always been comfortable in embracing and exploring her sexuality onscreen. Any performer who earns a reputation for on-camera nudity, whether it’s warranted or not, will inevitably be faced with a barrage of borderline misogynistic questions, and she was no different.
Having bared all in projects like 300: Rise of an Empire, Camelot, Proxima, and Sin City: A Dame to Kill for, Green admitted that “all the questions from journalists afterwards would only be about the nudity,” going as far as to add that, “Sometimes, I feel like I’m a porn actress.”
That’s not how anyone wants to be viewed, but that’s how people with their minds in the gutter tend to operate. Fortunately, she happens to be a phenomenal actor who instantly elevates almost anything she appears in, but despite being helmed by a celebrated director, her first major role in a feature had to contend with two particularly vocal detractors: her parents.
Bernardo Bertolucci’s erotic drama, The Dreamers, revolves around the love triangle that forms between an American student and two Parisian siblings. Fully aware of the fallout from Last Tango in Paris and how that impacted the career of its female lead, Green admitted that her folks “were scared that I would have the same destiny as Maria Schneider.”
“My mother really hated it,” she told The Guardian. “She didn’t sleep afterwards. She is scared that I’ll be typecast as some kind of sexual icon.” The Dreamers was initially rated NC-17, with an R-rated version removing several minutes of especially steamy footage, and as sexually-charged as it is, it didn’t have any noticeable negative effects on Green, who booked Kingdom of Heaven and Casino Royale soon after.
As for her own first impression, it’s not as if she couldn’t see what her old dear was getting at. “I saw the film in rough cut, and I was quite shocked,” she acknowledged. “I looked down when I saw my body and saw the sex scenes. For me, it was as though I was wearing a costume while we were making the film. It was as if I had another story in my mind. So I was left speechless.”
Green was shocked at watching The Dreamers, and she was in it, which explains why a post-Donnie Darko Jake Gyllenhaal got cold feet after he screen-tested with her for the role of Matthew, which was eventually played by Michael Pitt. She recalled that “his lawyers or his agent didn’t want him to get naked in a movie” because they thought it “would be really bad for his career, because in America I think they’re very, very puritan.”
She had no such qualms, and even though her parents pleaded with her not to take the role, and even though she was left shocked by her own scenes in the film, Green has never regretted making it.
