Eva Green on Tim Burton and facing her biggest fears for Dumbo

Despite putting all the time in with the title character for some of the most memorable scenes in Tim Burton’s labour of love remake of the Disney classic, Dumbo, Eva Green had never actually seen the elephant in all its heartfelt computer-generated glory.

Eva Green usually can’t stand to watch her own movies.

The French model-turned actor, who first shot to fame as glamorous Bond girl Vesper Lynn in Daniel Craig’s first outing as 007, Casino Royale, can see the benefit of it, but actually doing it literally make her nauseous.

“I am awful,” she says.

“I have never been able to do that. It’s a very negative, narcissistic thing and I am like ‘ugh, oh God, I can’t’. I wish I could because I know some actors who will perform a scene and then go to the monitor and watch it back and go ‘OK, I should do it like this’ and they kind of correct themselves — but I just can’t.”

Green made an exception, however, for her new movie, Dumbo, Tim Burton’s live action take on the much loved Disney cartoon about a baby elephant with freakishly big ears who is ridiculed and separated from his mother before becoming the circus’s biggest star when he learns to fly.

READ MORE:

DUMBO REVIEW: WON’T PLEASE PURISTS OF THE CLASSIC

DUMBO STAR DANNY DEVITO FACEPLANTS ON STAGE

LIVE ACTION DUMBO TRAILER HAS EVERYONE CRYING

DANNY DEVITO WAS EATING WHAT IN BATMAN RETURNS?

Eva Green says she was blown away when she finally saw the computer-generated title character in Dumbo.

In her third collaboration with the quirky, Oscar-nominated director, Green plays Colette Marchant the trapeze artist who soars around the big top on the back of the flappy-eared, flying pachyderm.

But despite putting all the time in with the title character for some of the most memorable scenes in the film, Green had never actually seen the elephant in all its computer-generated glory.

All she had to work with was something that looked like mechanical bull, which she sat on surrounded by green screens and giant fans — and she was desperate to see the final result.

“It was a thing that was lifted up in the air and you had to grip it with your legs like you were a riding a horse bareback and it was kind of moving around with wind machines,” Green says. “It was an intense inner thigh workout.”

When she finally bit the bullet and watched the finished film, she was blown away by the CG wonder that nearly steals the show from her well-credentialed co-stars including Colin Farrell, and Burton regulars Danny De Vito and Michael Keaton.

“I really got caught,” she says.

“I was so moved by Dumbo — the character is such a wonderful miracle with CGI. It’s so moving and it’s just pure entertainment that kind of melts your heart.”

Watching herself on screen was not the only fear Green had to overcome while making Dumbo. Green admits she has long been terrified of heights — not an ideal situation for a would-be trapeze artist.

“No, it’s not that great is it?,” she says with a laugh.

Eva Green and Tim Burton — who have now made three films together — at the Dumbo Paris Gala Screening. Picture: Getty

Thankfully she had a crack team, including internationally renowned aerialist Katharine Arnold and choreographer Fran Jaynes, to her help her face her fears and whip her into shape physically, building up her arms and abs.

“It’s just discipline and repetition, working hard and going step by step,” she says of the rigorous regimen.

“First of all you need to get strength in order to do lots of things. They have bruises everywhere these people, behind the knees, on their arms, they are quite masochistic. But I am in awe of them — they are so full of dedication.”

Burton, the man behind Batman, Beetlejuice and Alice In Wonderland, is best known for a dark, gothic, fantastical sensibility that at first glance might seem at odds with the bright, family oriented Disney brand.

But Green, having worked him on Dark Shadows and Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children, begs to differ.

“Well I don’t know,” she muses.

“When you think of Dumbo or Bambi — or even Snow White — those were quite dark and I know that children like to be taken seriously and they like to be scared a bit.

“That makes it much more exciting. If it’s just rainbows and unicorns and it’s all wonderful — then that’s kind of boring. So with Dumbo I think that Tim was THE director for it.

“Everybody will identify with Dumbo, and his wounded heart when he gets separated from his mother echoes in everybody. And it’s a very Tim Burton theme — the outsider who feels a bit unloved — and this movie is saying ‘it’s OK to be different, you are going to survive and it’s a good thing to be different’. I think it’s great that children hear that message because it helps them to believe in themselves a bit more.”

Eva Green as aerialist Colette Marchant in Tim Burton’s remake of Disney classic, Dumbo.

Green’s character in Dumbo also learns to believe in herself, beginning the film as a wounded trophy girlfriend to Keaton’s greedy, duplicitous ringmaster and transformed by the love of family bonds.

Although the movie is set in the aftermath of WWI, Green laments that all too often in the century since women have had to exist in thrall to powerful men.

“(Collette) is kind of lying to herself and blinded by the luxury and the fact that he allows her to live her passion in the most prestigious circus in the world,” she says.

“But even today, women are strong but there are women who are unfortunately scared and live in the shadow of their husband.”

But Green, who came forward two years ago as one of many women who alleged that Hollywood kingpin Harvey Weinstein had made inappropriate advances, says that attitudes are finally turning around.

“It it’s in every field where you have a---holes using their power and you learn from it as well,” she says.

“I am just very happy that we are in a time where women are becoming stronger. It’s a glorious time for sure.”

Dumbo opens on Thursday.