French beauty Eva Green is new Bond girl

The new James Bond now has his Bond Girl.

Eva Green, whose screen credits include Bernardo Bertolucci's erotic drama "The Dreamers," will co-star as the enticing Vesper Lynd in "Casino Royale" opposite Daniel Craig.

Craig is making his debut appearance as Bond in the film.

"Eva is one of France's most accomplished young actresses, now receiving international acclaim," producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli said Thursday in a statement. "She brings to the complex role of Vesper an exciting combination of enigmatic and seductive beauty", reports ABC News.

The 25-year-old made her first big screen film, The Dreamers, three years ago, about an incestuous brother and sister who befriend a young American during the Paris student riots of the Sixties.

She made her first Hollywood film last year when she appeared with Orlando Bloom in Ridley Scott's historical drama Kingdom of Heaven.

The Dreamers' director Bernardo Bertolucci once said of the actress: "She's so beautiful it's indecent."

It has also been announced that Danish-born actor Mads Mikkelsen, 40, will play Bond's nemesis Le Chiffre, and US star Jeffrey Wright, 40, has joined the cast as Felix Leiter.

Mikkelsen made his American debut opposite Clive Owen and Keira Knightley in Disney's King Arthur. Wright has appeared in films such as Shaft, Ali, The Manchurian Candidate, Broken Flowers, and Syriana.

Casino Royale will be the 21st James Bond and is based on Ian Fleming's first Bond novel. It is directed by Martin Campbell, who was previously at the helm of 1995 blockbuster GoldenEye.

The movie will be released worldwide on November 17 and will be filmed on location in the Czech Republic, the Bahamas, Italy and the UK.

Bond producers Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli said: "After an extensive search we have found the perfect actress, according to Daily Mail.

O.Ch.