Nocebo Star Eva Green Talks the Film’s Paranoia-Driven Delusions

Eva Green has brought a number of powerful and complex characters to life over the years, from Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale to Artemisia in 300: Rise of an Empire to Ava Lord in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, but in director Lorcan Finnegan’s Nocebo, Green enters a different realm. While Green isn’t a stranger to the horror genre, this film sees her playing a character struggling with a bizarre illness, requiring her to showcase vulnerability, paranoia, and possible delusions about what’s really happening to her own body. Nocebo hits theaters on November 4th and hits Digital HD and On Demand on November 22nd.

In Nocebo, a fashion designer (Green) suffers from a mysterious illness that confounds her doctors and frustrates her husband (Mark Strong) – until help arrives in the form of a Filipino nanny (Chai Fonacier) who uses traditional folk healing to reveal a horrifying truth.

ComicBook.com caught up with Green to talk her interest in the role, exploring the mysterious narrative, and her possible future in the world of comic books.

ComicBook.com: When you were first getting involved in this project, what was it specifically about Nocebo that appealed to you so much? Was it the twist of the story, was it the collaborating with the director and you were on board for anything he wanted to do?

Eva Green: I think I was very excited even before reading the script, because it was Lorcan, and I really loved his previous movie, Vivarium. I thought it was very weird. I’d never seen something like this before. It was a strange subject and the characters were interesting, and it was very unusual. So I loved his world already, and when I read the script again, the atmosphere was disturbing, which, you could tell that he’s a real director.

And then the twist at the end, I was not expecting this at all, and I thought, “Wow, that’s cool.” It’s a very social film as well, and psychological, with these two women who have deep wounds. It was not just like a horror movie, and I don’t think I would’ve done it if it was just a horror movie. 

It’s funny because, as you’re talking, being familiar with Vivarium, that movie has so many ambiguous themes and ambiguous ideas and endings and conclusions that when this delivered a more concrete explanation of why this whole journey kicked off, I was completely taken by surprise because I was enjoying it enough as it was without any hopes of resolution. So to get that, I was absolutely thrilled and fascinated.

You never know where you’re going with Lorcan, which is good, I think. He surprises you constantly and makes you question stuff and think, and that’s interesting.

I know that typically you are drawn to characters that you feel are pretty different from you as an opportunity to get out of your skin and live as someone else for a little bit. What about this character felt so different, but what about the character do you really actually relate to as an entry point to playing her?

She’s such a tormented soul. I love the relationship that she had with Diana. It’s very ambiguous, as you say. It’s like you don’t really understand what’s going on and then it shifts. Diana becomes the master. Christine becomes the servant. This guilt that Christine carries is very interesting. And you don’t know, actually, you think, “Is it just in her head, or is it due to this tick bite?”

I really love the social message behind all this, that she’s in total denial of what happened to her in the past. I thought that was very, very powerful. The ending is completely unexpected, and then you go, “Oh, my God, now I get it.” That was interesting. 

I’ve read that you at least at one point used to be interested in collecting taxidermy and insects, so with the tick in this movie, did you try and convince Lorcan to let you take home one of the big ticks?

Oh, my God, no way. It’s so disgusting. I remember that scene, and it’s a comedy, I wish we had a making-of for this, when we are with Mark Strong in the bed. And then there were two people, VFX men, in green suits holding a stick with this gigantic tick. It was so funny. It was so difficult not to laugh and I had to look like, “Oh, my God, I’m so afraid of that awful thing.” Then it lands on Mark’s face. It was so funny. It was difficult not to laugh.

No, it’s not cute enough. But now I’m super vegan and all this, so I don’t even buy those creatures anymore. But yeah, no, a tick is not … It’s not like a beautiful green beetle. So, no thank you. 

Speaking to how this movie is similar to Vivarium in that we get a slice of this universe, this world, but there’s clearly bigger things at play, there’s bigger ideas, bigger concepts that we don’t totally know about, did you speak with Lorcan to learn the total backstory, history of the whole world? Or do you focus just on this script, this character, this story?

Lorcan sent me a few links to documentaries, especially about Lyme disease, which was interesting because lots of people who have Lyme disease, before they get diagnosed, people think, “Oh, they’re just tired. It’s psychosomatic, they’re mad.” It was interesting because it echoed what Christine was going through. You see when it’s really bad in the Lyme disease documentaries, some people are shaking, and they get hallucinations sometimes, and they get extremely depressed. That was like, “Oh, okay, I understand.” I felt for them. Bless them.

Also, he sent me the link to Safe with Julianne Moore, the Todd Haynes movie. That was quite helpful, as well, for the world, that Julianne Moore is trapped in this big house in L.A., being completely misunderstood and feeling ill. Everybody is like, “Ha ha ha, this is not happening,” and it resembled Christine’s life.

Lorcan is very visual, so he sent me lots of images, paintings, books on sleep paralysis. I love when directors give you a bit of homework and they’re so passionate, and it gives you an idea, as well, of what they want for you to do. You feel guided, which is very helpful. 

You’ve done Sin City, you’ve done 300, and I know your name, unbeknownst to you, gets tossed out for, “Oh, guess who’s going to be in a Marvel movie,” or whatever, and that’s just all been rumors. But has that ever inspired you, have you ever been interested in diving into one of those big, blockbuster, $300-million movies? Or do you think you’ve done the more appealing version of comic books with your past films so you’re not interested in the big-budget stuff? 

It always depends on the role, I think, on the story, if it’s not too one-dimensional. It’s interesting. 300 or whatever, the character was interesting, and she was not just a baddie. You understood why she behaved this way. She had a dark past that gave her humanity. 

In Sin City, she’s 100% evil, but it’s a genre. It’s like, you have to embrace it, and it’s fun to play the femme fatale. No, they were great. They were meaty roles, and it’s always fun to play strong women like this, and so if you feel like, “I’m going to have fun,” there’s something in there, then go for it. 

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Nocebo hits theaters on November 4th and hits Digital HD and On Demand on November 22nd.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You can contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter.