Interview: Diane Kruger
Beauty and the Beasts
Don’t let that pretty face fool you. Diane Kruger holds her own as one of Quentin Tarantino’s bloodthirsty Nazi hunters in the WW II revenge fantasy Inglourious Basterds
By Karine Cohen-Dicker
Stunning enough to play Helen of Troy in Troy and versatile enough to conquer cinema on several continents, Diane Kruger finally found a big Hollywood role she was born to play: a German.
Kruger, from Algermissen, Germany, spied her big break when she discovered director Quentin Tarantino was looking for a Teutonic beauty to portray Bridget von Hammersmark, an actor who helps a brigade of Jewish soldiers flame broil the Third Reich in Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. “It took a while [before he agreed] to audition me because he didn’t believe I was German,” Kruger says of the director. “And I finally did, and that’s that.”
Tarantino can be forgiven for the misunderstanding. Kruger, 33, speaks fluent French and English in addition to her native tongue. She has a long list of credits in French and American films, including National Treasure (2004) and its 2007 sequel. And, according to media reports, now that her boyfriend Joshua Jackson is shooting TV’s Fringe in his hometown of Vancouver, the couple is expected to set up house there soon.
She is perhaps best known for inhabiting the face that launched a thousand ships and causing havoc for Brad Pitt’s Achilles in Troy (2004), and Inglourious Basterds reunites her with Pitt (who plays squad leader Aldo Raine) in a revenge fantasy that rewrites history with a pastiche of Tarantino’s favourite movie genres.
But getting to this point in her career was a struggle.
Kruger endured a difficult childhood, and turned to ballet to escape the tension caused by her alcoholic father. When Diane was 13, her mother took her and her brother and fled their home in the middle of the night. When an injury ruined her dance aspirations, Kruger turned to modelling in France and Germany.
After some acting classes, Kruger made her onscreen debut in the 2002 South Africa-set TV thriller The Piano Player with Dennis Hopper. Her résumé includes very few German-speaking roles, but Inglourious Basterds — in which she speaks English, French and German — should make up for that.
Kruger was at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, where the movie premiered, when we sat down to discuss Tarantino’s quirks and the joy of playing a World War II German who’s a hero for a change.
How were you first introduced to the part?
“The script was quite public when Tarantino first decided he was going to make this film. I immediately thought, ‘Oh, that part should go to me.’ It wasn’t a given at all because he had someone in mind for this role, so he didn’t want to meet with anyone else. Then that didn’t work out for whatever reason.”
Why were you compelled to play Bridget?
“As you can imagine, when you’re German you get offered a lot of World War II movies, and I’ve always said no. I didn’t want to be limited to play that. Then this came around and it was just so funny, and obviously, yes, it’s a fairy tale, a farce. That character was just the coolest. What I like about her is that she’s an impossibly glamorous movie star but she’s not James Bond. She’s not this killing machine. You see her quite vulnerable and funny, rather than an obvious cliché of Marlene Dietrich the movie star.”
But you modelled Bridget after another German actor, Hildegard Knef. Why?
“What I liked about her was that she was very tough and she must have smoked two packs of cigarettes a day. Her voice was very deep. She was very beautiful but she was just a tad mannish, a little tough.”
What is it about the fairy tale aspect of this movie that is so appealing?
“I think it’s part wishful thinking. It was fun to me. I am German. Nobody will ever forget. It wasn’t disrespectful to anyone. It was fun. I liked Quentin’s tone. Only someone like Quentin could pull that off.”
How would you categorize this movie?
“It’s a Western, a film noir, it’s all those things. I don’t think Quentin intended to make a serious movie. I don’t think he wanted to make something with a deep political message. I didn’t see it that way.”
Did you project yourself into the film?
“I like to think that if I had the opportunity to bring down the Third Reich, I would have had the balls to do it.”
How will modern Germany regard this?
“It all depends on Germany’s sense of humour, which only time will tell. I’m German. I thought it was very funny. It’s a cool idea. We’ll see.”
We hear so many stories about what it’s like to work for Tarantino. Please add to the canon.
“It was challenging. He’s very demanding. He’s a very precise, hands-on director. For example he doesn’t allow for video village [in which the director watches a monitor in a room away from the set]. He literally sits next to the camera and watches you, which is a little startling from the beginning. Sometimes he has to stop a scene because he’s laughing at his jokes…. He became a huge safety blanket, though. He sees everything. And every little thing that you’re trying to do, if he likes what you do, he’s right there and he’s going to give that an extra shot.”
He is also known to make actors stick to the script.
“He’s very attached to his words in English. He can stop a scene if you forget a word.”
Tarantino made what many might see as a guys’ movie, yet it features some heroic women, including your character. That’s pretty rare.
“He’s one of the few directors who truly love strong women. Women are always very elevated and are shown as strong, not victims.”
How do you think Inglourious Basterds will affect your career?
“I definitely see it as the greatest opportunity I’ve had to play in a movie with a director that I admire 100 percent. I feel like it was the first time a director of this calibre trusted me with a part that had nothing to do with the way I look or movies I’ve made before. He’s famous for hiring people who are 100 percent right for the part. I feel like that also because of this, a lot of opportunities have come across. I’ve gotten spoiled with this and realized what a difference a great director can make, what he’s able to get out of an actress. The next project, I’ll choose a lot more carefully.”
You were one of the few to speak German, French and English in the film. Did you ever play translator on the set?
“I did a lot of translating, because you’d think you understand something, and then you didn’t. For me it was great.”
Beyond your experience in Cannes, what’s it like to see yourself onscreen in a film for the first time?
“You don’t really watch the movie. You see it for what it is. You discover what it is. The cuts. You’re watching your own performance. It’s a strange experience.”
Karine Cohen-Dicker is a New York-based journalist and native Parisian who recently wrote a French-language biography of George Clooney entitled George Clooney: Gentleman Acteur.
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What’s in a name?
If you think Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds has an odd title take a look at the film on which it’s very loosely based — a 1978 B movie from Italian director Enzo G. Casellari (which was recently re-released on DVD and Blu-ray). Shot in Italy, that film began its life with the shooting title Bastardi Senza Gloria, which literally translates to Bastards Without Glory, but was released in Italy as Quel Maledetto Treno Blindato (That Damned Armoured Train).
In the States the movie hit theatres as Inglorious Bastards, but was subsequently re-released as Counterfeit Commandos, The Dirty 7 (a play on The Dirty Dozen, the far superior film it unabashedly aped), Deadly Mission, Hell’s Heroes and, perhaps most interesting of all, G.I. Bro. Although re-releasing a movie with a new title in order to pass it off as a fresh film was not unusual at the time, G.I. Bro went one step further. To capitalize on the growing popularity of blaxploitation films, the movie was actually recut to make it seem as if supporting actor Fred Williamson, an African-American, had the starring role.
—Marni Weisz
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