Eva Green ‘contemplated faking a broken arm’ to avoid appearing in film, High Court told
Hollywood actress Eva Green “contemplated faking a broken arm” to avoid appearing in a later-abandoned sci-fi movie, the High Court has been told.
Green also suggested pretending she had been hospitalised with a “serious rash” so she didn’t have to perform, the court was told.
Further messages from the French actress, who has appeared in movies including the James Bond film Casino Royale, have been disclosed as part of her legal battle with production company White Lantern Film.
The 42-year-old is suing the production company after the film she was due to star in, A Patriot, was abandoned in October 2019.
She is claiming she is entitled to her million-dollar (£810,000) fee for the project despite its cancellation under the terms of their agreement.
White Lantern Film and lender SMC Speciality Finance are bringing a counterclaim against Green, alleging she undermined the independent film’s production and renounced the contract.
Max Mallin KC, for White Lantern, said Ms Green had shown a “categorical and unequivocal refusal to perform”.
Mr Mallin said on Tuesday that Green was “so concerned about what would happen if she were expressly called upon to perform” that she had suggested her agent, Charles Collier, “invent a story about Ms Green being hospitalised” in one of the recently-shared messages.
The court was told the message from Green in September 2019 read: “If they come back to you and say they are going to go ahead with the movie, what can we say…?
“Could we say this situation has made me ill over the weekend? We could say I had to go to hospital as I had a serious rash all over my body?”
Green then asked her agent if a doctor would potentially help, the court was told.
In written submissions, Mr Mallin added Green also “appeared to contemplate faking a broken arm” to avoid performing.
The barrister said it was not up to Green whether or not she was called to set, adding: “What is within her control is whether she responds to that call or not and, in my submission, she is making quite clear that she was not.”
He added that if Green had been called to perform “she would not have done the film”.
Mr Mallin added in written submissions that most of Ms Green’s evidence was “unconvincing and at times appeared to be rehearsed”.
Read more:
Eva Green blames ‘Frenchness’ for ‘horrible’ messages about movie bosses
Eva Green was ‘fragile, volatile and likely to combust’, court hears
‘Humiliated’ Green says she did not expect to have messages ‘exposed’
Eva Green with Daniel Craig during the filming of Casino Royale
Edmund Cullen KC, for Green, said the actress had been subjected to a “character assassination”, adding it was “based on some of the cheapest and nastiest sorts of stereotypes around”.
He said the actress had been described as making excessive demands and going out of contact.
“These sorts of lies are very damaging and they need to be scotched,” Mr Cullen said.
The barrister later said that White Lantern was “vomiting out” allegations Ms Green had breached her contract, none of which were true.
He added: “Ms Green was overwhelmingly keen to provide her acting services to White Lantern for this film.”
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Mr Cullen said that Green did not renounce the contract and that witnesses for White Lantern and the lender “came here to deceive the court”.
He said in written arguments: “The highest that it goes is that Ms Green said, as she readily admitted, that working with [executive producer] Mr Seal ‘in control’ would be ‘impossible’.
“However, that is, of course, very far from a statement of a refusal to perform [the contract].”
The barrister added that Green was never given the opportunity to perform or not as she was never called upon.
The court was previously told that the actress had described potential crew members as “s****y peasants”, the production as a “B-s****y-movie” and executive producer Jake Seal as “pure vomit”.
In the further messages, Green is also said to have described Mr Seal as a “sociopath” and “a real mad dictator who wants to prove he is right so he could be ready for anything”.
Mr Justice Michael Green is due to give his decision in writing at a later date.
Entertainment
Kim Kardashian arrives at court to ‘confront’ her alleged attackers in Paris robbery trial
Kim Kardashian has arrived at court to face a group accused of robbing her at gunpoint nearly a decade ago.
Wearing a black skirt suit, sunglasses, and with her hair pulled back into a chignon, the US reality star walked up the steps accompanied by her mother Kris and a large entourage.
The US reality star greeted the judge with a soft “Hello,” thanking the French authorities for “allowing me to tell my truth”.
Kim Kardashian waves as she arrives at court. Pic: AP
She began by telling the court of her love for Paris, calling it a “magical place,” before becoming tearful when describing the robbery, and talking of her “confusion” when two men entered her room dressed as police officers, accompanied by the handcuffed concierge.
She told the court: “I had fallen asleep naked with a robe on, I was flustered.”
Kardashian will face 10 defendants who it is alleged pulled off one of the most audacious celebrity heists in modern French history in the early hours of 3 October 2016.
Ahead of her in-person appearance, Kardashian’s lawyers said she was ready to “confront” the defendants and intended to do so “with dignity and courage”.
It’s alleged that five masked men posing as police officers stormed the residence, with two entering Kardashian’s room and robbing her at gunpoint.
Kim Kardashian. Pic: Reuters
Police say the men escaped on bicycles, with around $9m of jewellery, including a $4m engagement ring from Kardashian’s then-husband Kanye West. Most of the jewellery was never recovered.
Earlier on Tuesday, in Paris’s central criminal court, Kardashian’s stylist Simone Harouche described the moment she was woken by the US star’s screams of terror and feared she had been “raped or violated”.
Ms Harouche, 45, who says she has worked for Kardashian for many years and has been friends with her since she was 12, told the court she was woken by “a sound I had never heard from Kim… It was terror”.
Sleeping in a separate apartment, on the next floor down from Kardashian’s, she went on: “What I heard specifically was [Kim saying], ‘I have babies and I need to live – that is what she kept saying… Take everything. I need to live'”.
She told the judge: “When I realised something terrible was going on upstairs and I realised it was not friends [in Kim’s room], I started looking for my telephone and I started looking for something to help save mine and Kim’s life.”
Simone Harouche pictured last year. Pic: Virisa Yong/BFA.com/Shutterstock
She went on to lock herself in her bathroom and hide in her shower, where she called Kardashian’s sister Kourtney and texted her security guard, Pascal Duvier, telling them, “Something is very wrong… Kim is upstairs with men and we need help.”
She says minutes later, Kardashian “hopped” into her room, explaining: “To see my friend with her feet taped and a very light robe with nothing under, and all messed up and pulled, I thought she could have been raped or very violated.”
She said she removed the tape from Kardashian’s feet, and her friend was “beside herself”, adding, “I’ve never seen her like that before. She was screaming, ‘We need to get out, what do we do if they come back? We need to jump from the first floor, we need to get out'”.
Later, when questioned by the lawyer of one of the defendants on why she did not come out of the bathroom, she said: “I’m the kind of person to hide, [Kardashian’s] the kind of person to take care of other people.”
‘Just because a woman wears jewellery, doesn’t make her a target’
When asked by the judge whether she or Kardashian had believed at the time that wearing and sharing images of such expensive jewellery would be a risk, Ms Harouche says: “Just because a woman wears jewellery doesn’t make her a target. That’s like saying because a woman wears a short skirt she deserves to be raped”.
She went on to say: “I think that that moment changed [Kardashian’s] life forever… In terms of security, she doesn’t go alone to places anymore.”
Read more: Everything you need to know about the Paris trial
Following the robbery, Ms Harouche says she quit her job as a stylist as the experience “made me fearful of all the things that could happen to celebrities, and being around them”.
Asking for ‘forgiveness’
At the end of her time in the witness stand, the judge attempted to play a video message from one of the defendants, Yunice Abbas.
Kardashian at the Siran Presentation on the day of the robbery. Pic: Matteo Prandoni/BFA/Shutterstock
Mr Abbas, who has admitted his part in the heist, published a book in 2021, titled “I Kidnapped Kim Kardashian”. A court has since ruled he will not benefit financially from it.
A tech issue meant the message would not play, so instead, the judge read out the statement from Mr Abbas, asking for “forgiveness” for his actions. When asked by the judge if she had a reaction to the apology, Ms Harouche answered, “No”.
The trial, which is being held in front of three judges and six jury members, is due to conclude at the end of this week.
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Stylist Simone Harouche has told a court that on the night Kim Kardashian was robbed in Paris she was woken by the US star’s screams of terror and feared she had been “raped or violated”.
Wearing a black jacket and bulky gold necklace, Ms Harouche, 45, spoke to Judge David de Pas in the Voltaire room of Paris’s criminal court via an interpreter, describing the robbery that took place in the French capital nearly a decade ago.
Ms Harouche, who says she has worked for Kardashian for many years and has been friends with her from childhood, told the court she was woken by “a sound I had never heard from Kim… It was terror”.
Sleeping in a separate apartment, on the next floor down from Kardashian’s, she went on: “What I heard specifically was [Kim saying], ‘I have babies and I need to live – that is what she kept saying… Take everything. I need to live'”.
She told the judge: “When I realised something terrible was going on upstairs and I realised it was not friends [in Kim’s room] I started looking for my telephone and I started looking for something to help save mine and Kim’s life.”
She went on to lock herself in her bathroom and hide in her shower, where she called Kardashian’s sister Kourtney and texted her security guard, Pascal Duvier, telling them, “Something is very wrong… Kim is upstairs with men and we need help.”
She says minutes later, Kardashian entered her room, explaining: “To see my friend with her feet taped and a very light robe with nothing under, and all messed up and pulled, I thought she could have been raped or very violated.”
She said Kardashian was highly emotional, adding: “She was beside herself, I’ve never seen her like that before. She was screaming, ‘We need to get out, what do we do if they come back? We need to jump from the first floor, we need to get out.'”
Simone Harouche pictured last year. Pic: Virisa Yong/BFA.com/Shutterstock
Describing Kardashian as “not in her body”, she said she thinks the star “was still in trauma” while they waited for help after the robbery, and went on to describe the scene following the incident as “very chaotic”.
Later on Tuesday, Kardashian herself will face 10 defendants who it is alleged pulled off one of the most audacious celebrity heists in modern French history in the early hours of 3 October 2016.
The trial is now entering its third week.
Kardashian at the Siran Presentation on the day of the robbery. Pic: Matteo Prandoni/BFA/Shutterstock
Read more: Everything you need to know about the Paris trial
In the French capital for Paris Fashion Week, Kardashian has previously said she was home alone in the early hours of 3 October, while her sister Kourtney and entourage – including her security guard – went out clubbing.
It’s alleged that five masked men posing as police officers stormed the residence, with two entering Kardashian’s room and robbing her at gunpoint.
She says she was then bound and gagged with tape and cable ties and left in the bathtub.
Police say the men escaped on bicycles, with around $9m of jewellery, including a $4m engagement ring from Kardashian’s then-husband Kanye West.
Most of the jewellery was never recovered.
The trial is taking place in Paris’s Palais de Justice. Pic: Reuters
Ahead of her in-person appearance, Kardashian’s lawyers said she was ready to “confront” her Paris attackers and intended to do so “with dignity and courage”.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
Please refresh the page for the fullest version.
You can receive breaking news alerts on a smartphone or tablet via the Sky News app. You can also follow us on WhatsApp and subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with the latest news.
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