Eva Green’s finest ever performance to date. Penny Dreadful (Various, 2014 – Present)

 Eva Green’s finest ever performance to date. Penny Dreadful (Various, 2014 – Present)

Without a doubt, Eva Green’s finest ever performance to date. Penny Dreadful, the latest TV show by Showtime (the company that brought us shows like Dexter, Homeland and Masters of S*x), is a supernatural gothic horror series that takes the stories of Frankenstein, Dracula and Dorian Gray and turns them on their head in truly spine-tingling fashion.

While it offered intriguing performances from the likes of Harry Treadway, Josh Hartnett and Timothy Dalton, Eva Green is the one you remember the most, and the character of Vanessa Ives has never been more enigmatic and complex. She can be polite and charismatic one minute, vulnerable and broken the next, and then she becomes freaky and scary. For example, in episode 2 (‘Séance’), a séance literally takes place where an ancient demon possesses her, and it’s here Green gives an eye-rolling, body-contorting, expletive-laden turn worthy of The Exorcist, and it’s truly terrifying. Then, later on in the series, she takes that range to the absolute limit.

In episode 5 (‘Closer Than Sisters’), she peels back the layers to show us someone who has quite literally danced with the Devil, and in episode 7 (‘Possession’), she switches between the possessed and broken versions of Vanessa with incredible ease, creating something that is both hypnotic and horrifying. In Penny Dreadful, she’s absolutely fearless, demonstrating an alarmingly quick versatility, and that’s why it’s my personal favourite performance from the sublime Eva Green. Frankly, I can’t wait to see where she takes Vanessa in Season 2.