Eva Gaëlle Green first captivated audiences in 2003 with her fearless performance in Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers, but, in truth, she never seemed destined for an ordinary path. Born in Paris to French actress Marlène Jobert and Swedish-French dentist Walter Green, Eva grew up with a deep sensitivity and artistic leanings – much to her mother’s anxiety. “My mother was terrified when I told her I wanted to act,” Eva recalled to The Guardian. “She knew how brutal this industry can be.”
But cautious warnings weren’t enough to slow her down. Eva’s breakthrough came just a few years later as the tragic, layered Vesper Lynd in 2006’s Casino Royale – a Bond woman who was more than just a love interest and whose heartbreak left a lasting mark on 007 himself. With ethereal green eyes and her signature dark hair (dyed since adolescence), Green quickly carved out a place for herself as cinema’s reigning queen of mystery and depth.
Rather than playing it safe, Eva has always gravitated toward roles rich with psychological complexity or tinged with the supernatural. From the icy witch Serafina Pekkala in The Golden Compass to the haunted Vanessa Ives in Penny Dreadful, she seems to dissolve into her characters, drawing viewers in with an intensity that feels almost otherworldly.
Behind the Dark Glamour
Away from the set, Eva’s life is far from the typical Hollywood fairy tale. She’s famously private – almost allergic to the red carpet grind. She barely touches social media (“I’m not comfortable with the whole celebrity thing, to be honest,” she admitted to The Telegraph in 2016), skips industry parties, and has made her home in London instead of Los Angeles.
That old-fashioned privacy carries into her romantic life. Eva rarely discusses relationships publicly and has managed to keep her love life largely shielded from the press. Her two-year relationship with actor Marton Csokas – her costar in Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven – was as “public” as she’s ever allowed. Prior to that, she had a brief whirlwind with Michael Pitt in the early 2000s, after meeting in Paris’s creative circles, and reportedly dated Yann Claassen around the start of her career, though she’s never elaborated.
The Tim Burton Connection
Of all the rumors swirling around Eva, perhaps the most persistent has been her alleged romance with director Tim Burton. After their work together on Dark Shadows and then again on Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, tongues wagged about a possible off-screen relationship blossoming around 2015. Neither Eva nor Tim ever confirmed anything, and the two have simply kept collaborating – creating, if nothing else, an artistic kinship that’s hard to ignore.
There’s a certain parallel between Eva’s approach to love and her career – almost stubbornly selective. “Eva would rather be alone than with someone who doesn’t completely fascinate her,” one former colleague noted. She doesn’t chase the spotlight, nor does she date for attention. In a rare 2018 interview, asked about marriage and children, she replied, “I’ve never felt the pressure to settle down. I love children, but I don’t know if that’s in my future. I’m still figuring out what I want.”
Now in her early 40s, Eva continues to guard her personal life with the same enigmatic spirit she brings to her characters. She’s been busier than ever – starring in BBC’s The Luminaries and playing a single-mother astronaut in Proxima – and if she’s dating anyone now, she’s kept it an airtight secret.
Past Relationships
Tim Burton
Marton Csokas
Michael Pitt
Yann Claassen
For someone whose gift is disappearing inside the world’s darkest and most complex women, Eva Green manages to remain an enigma herself: mysterious, deeply talented, and never anything less than entirely her own woman.
