French actress Eva Green first seduced American audiences with her uncompromising - and very nude - performance in Bernardo Bertolucci's erotic drama The Dreamers.

Now the 24-year-old raven-haired beauty is back as the mysterious Muslim princess in Ridley Scott's Crusade epic Kingdom of Heaven.

She was all nerves when The Sun sat down with her on the balcony of her suite at the Pasadena Ritz Carlton Hotel.

THE SUN: I couldn't help but notice your unique rings. One is a silver skull and the other is a rather Egyptian-looking blue stone.

GREEN: It's a fossilized beetle actually. Please don't think I'm obsessed with death or into the gothic. I found them fascinating when I saw them. I find they calm my nerves.

THE SUN: Are you a nervous person?

GREEN: I'm very sensitive and that makes me nervous especially doing things like interviews.

THE SUN: Were you always sensitive or did that just come with your recent celebrity?

GREEN: I was a very sensitive child. That's why my mother tried to persuade me not to become an actress.

THE SUN: Isn't your mother the famous French actress Marlene Jobert?

GREEN: She doesn't act any more. She writes children's books.

THE SUN: Your first film The Dreamers featured a great deal of nudity and you have a nude scene with Orlando Bloom in Kingdom of Heaven. Are you comfortable with on-screen nudity?

GREEN: Nudity is not a big thing with Europeans but it terrifies Americans. Jake Gyllenhaal was supposed to be in The Dreamers, but he refused to do the nudity. Michael Pitt, who replaced him, was afraid people in America would think he was a porno actor because he did complete nudity. It's all very juvenile.

THE SUN: You are living in England rather than France. Is there a reason?

GREEN: I want to do more English-language films and maybe a stage play in English.

THE SUN: Do you have a particular exercise regime to stay in shape?

GREEN: I'm French and I'm lazy, which means I smoke and I don't exercise. This is the body I was given.


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