London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Oct 01, 2025

Eva Green ‘called film producers a***holes’ in WhatsApp chat - court will hear

Eva Green ‘called film producers a***holes’ in WhatsApp chat - court will hear

Actress Eva Green called producers “a***holes” and branded crew members as “peasants” in bitter wrangling over a doomed £4 million movie project she is accused of sabotaging, the High Court is set to hear.
The 42-year-old French actress, a former Bond girl alongside Daniel Craig, signed up in 2019 to star alongside Helen Hunt and Charles Dance in British sci-fi film A Patriot.

However production was shut down in October that year after a spectacular falling-out between Green – an executive producer as well as the star – financial backers White Lantern, and executive producers Jake Seal and Terry Bird.

The actress sued for her £830,000 fee even though the movie was never made, but then faced a counterclaim accusing her of deliberately wrecking production.

The warring factions are due to go head-to-head in a High Court trial from Tuesday (24th), in a case which will air foul-mouthed messages sent by Green about the people she was working with.

She is accused of referring to Mr Seal as a “devious sociopath” and a “mad man” in WhatsApp exchanges revealed in advance of the trial, while she dubbed Mr Bird a “f***ing moron”.

When the actress wanted “her team” around her for the film shoot, she messaged her agent to complain: “I need my team around me so that I can handle anything evil Jake [Seal] throws at me”, court documents reveal.

Green added: “My team will have to pull out and I will be obliged to take his shitty peasants crew members from Hampshire.”

The Sin City 2 and Dumbo actress signed up in May 2019 to play the part of Kate Jones, a Border Corps captain in a futuristic authoritarian state, with British writer Dan Pringle directing his own original screenplay with a £4 million budget.

According to court papers, Green is accused of “engaging in a course of conduct that demonstrated that she had no intention and/or desire to complete the production of the film”.

The actress faces claims she made “unreasonable” demands on hiring crew members, changes to the filming schedule, switching locations, and script edits.

In the messages, Green is said to tell Mr Pringle: “At the end of the day, we want to get rid of Terry [Bird]. And his big Boss [Mr Seal].”

She then adds: “My name is Cruella”.

In one of the messages put forward to support an allegation that Green had deliberately sought to undermine the film’s production, she agreed to “find a way to get out of Jake [Seal]’s claws”.

It is said she told her assistant to ignore messages from Mr Seal and Mr Bird, calling them “arseholes” and saying: “I am trying to have us relocate somewhere else. But please do not tell them or I will get sued.

“The movie will get other producers and we will be with kind people. Just do not respond. Play deaf.”

The trial is set to explore in detail how the film’s production fell apart and who was to blame.

In mid-October 2019, a representative for Green sent a message to say she was “ready, willing and able to perform her services”, which is alleged to have been a deliberate lie.

It is said she and associates pretended to be content with the production while privately looking for ways out, allegedly dubbing it “Operation Fake it”.

In her submissions to the court, Green insists she met her obligations under the deal and has wrongly been denied her fee.

She says she had “rights of approval” over production hires, and “wanted a good team so that the film would be as good as it could be”.

Green says by late July she had “serious concerns about a number of aspects of the production, including that she had been misled as to the status of the defendant’s funding and its negotiations with crew members”.

Green said she denies “in its entirety” the allegation that she wrecked production or did not want the project to succeed.

“She did not seek to undermine or frustrate the production of the film. On the contrary, she made every effort to try to ensure that the film would be a success including on various occasions offering to use her own money to engage talented crew.

“However, she was throughout concerned about the lack of progress, the absence of any proper pre-production and the lack of professionalism of Mr Seal and Mr Bird.”

Green admits sending messages at the centre of the case, but says they will be analysed in full for context during the trial.

White Lantern Film (Britannica) Limited and a second defendant, SMC Specialty Finance LLC said in a statement they are “disappointed” in having to engage in legal action, including a counterclaim against Green, but are “confident” in “recovering the substantial losses which they allege were suffered because of Ms Green’s conduct”.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
×