Actress Eva Green confesses her fondness for complex characters
French actress Eva Green affirms that she is attracted to complex characters, such as that of the astronaut who, in order to fulfill her dream, must abandon her daughter in "Proxima", added to the race for the Golden Shell this Saturday, September 21 in San Sebastián .
"I fell in love with the idea of this woman astronaut who is torn between pursuing her dream or abandoning her daughter, and it's always interesting for an actor to face a conflict," Green said in an interview with AFP. "I like hard," she noted.
The film's director, Frenchwoman Alice Winocour, "is very demanding and pushes you out of your comfort zone, and that's something I like, I like to push my limits," said Green, remembered for her role in "The Dreamers" by Bernardo Bertolucci (2003) or "Bond girl" in Casino Royale (2006).
In fact, Green had to undergo rigorous physical training and study about space to get into the shoes of Sarah, a French astronaut who trains at the European Space Agency in Cologne.
"I had to build up the muscles because female astronauts have to have strong backs to be able to wear very heavy spacesuits," she explained.
"I realize how difficult it is (to be an astronaut), because space dramas often idealize space travel, but going to space is very hard on the body, one must be a little crazy, although in a positive sense, because it is does for scientific purposes.
In the film, shot on actual astronaut training locations, Sarah is selected to join the crew of the "Proxima" mission, which will spend a year on the International Space Station in preparation for a trip to Mars.
But that means separating from her close seven-year-old daughter, who is going to live with her father.
As she undergoes the most demanding tests, Sarah must come to terms with the fact that she will have to abandon Stella if she truly wants to achieve her dream of going to space.
A film more focused on human relationships than on special effects, "Proxima" shows how the relationship between mother and daughter, played by the girl Zélie Boulant-Lemesle, is cracking.
"She is an actress with surprising depth for her age, very spontaneous and graceful," said Green.
The fact that both the protagonist and the director of the film are women shows that the situation in the film industry is changing, Green considered, in the era of the #Metoo movement.
"It's a fantastic movie because it takes a feminist stance, showing a female astronaut is very powerful, a woman competing in a male environment, where of course she has to work and train harder just to be considered an equal," said the actress. .
Still, there is work to be done, she says. "Actresses should be paid the same as men, or in any field where they do the same work, and we haven't made much progress on that front," she said.
With a cast that also includes Matt Dillon and Lars Eidinger and shot in English, French, German and Russian, "Proxima" competes with 15 other films in the Official Selection for the Golden Shell for best film, which will be awarded on Saturday next September 28.
