Eva Green says hearing her private WhatsApp messages read publicly in a courtroom has been "humiliating" amid her lawsuit over a payment for a movie that never came to fruition.
On Tuesday, Green, 42, took the witness stand at London's High Court, during which a number of messages between the Casino Royale star and her agent, as well as with filmmaker Dan Pringle, were read aloud, according to Variety.
Green is suing White Lantern Ltd., a film production company which contracted her to star in a movie titled A Patriot before the production was scrapped in 2019 after it failed to gain financing. Green claims she is still owed a $1 million contract fee even though the movie was never completed, the outlet reported.
White Lantern and finance company Sherborne Media Finance have counter-sued the actress, claiming Green purposefully subverted the film's production so she could purchase its script and produce A Patriot herself.
"I have a very direct way of saying things," Green said during a cross-examination by the production company's lawyer, after he asked whether she is "accustomed to lying in text messages," Variety reported.
"I was not expecting to have my WhatsApp messages exposed in court. It's very humiliating," she added of the experience.
In WhatsApp messages released during the lawsuit, Green called producers on the film "evil" and "morons," referred to crew members on the production as "s----- peasants," and called the production at large a "f------ nightmare," according to the U.K.'s The Times.
Green also discussed a potential path to purchasing the rights to the film herself in the messages, The Times reported.
"Sometimes you say things you don't mean," the actress said in court, per The Times. "You hate someone, you say 'I'm going to kill this person'. Are you going to kill this person? No. It's a cry from the heart."
Green even referenced her Casino Royale costar Daniel Craig during her testimony, using the story of the actor's famous 2015 quote that he would rather "slash [his] wrists" than do another James Bond movie after the release of Spectre as an example of someone saying things they do not mean "under extreme pressure," according to the outlet.
On Tuesday, Green acknowledged that she wanted the film's production to collapse, but she continued to testify that she did not intentionally sabotage the movie and was prepared to shoot the film before production ceased.
"It's true I was worried about the whole situation, I felt the movie was not in safe hands," Green said in court, per The Times. "It was so chaotic. I still believed in the movie and I still wanted the movie to happen."
