She left the provincial town for the capital of fashion. She stepped off the catwalk and became a movie star. Foreign languages became almost native to her. She broke up with the men with whom she had years of relationship. A veteran of transformations and life-changing changes, Diane Kruger is convinced that there is nothing more practical than desperate deeds.
Awkwardness overtakes me immediately – because of intemperance. As soon as she appears at The 101 Coffee Shop in Hollywood on Franklin Avenue, she walks to my table next to the counter and holds out her hand to me … I blurt out: “You don’t walk like a model at all!” To which she calmly and affably responds: “So I’m not a model! Do you have a meeting with the model?
But she’s really not at all what they used to perceive Diane Kruger – a former top model, Karl Lagerfeld’s favorite, the face of several brands and a cover girl. She is not the one that started in Hollywood, barely leaving the podium – and immediately the role of not anyone, but Elena the Beautiful, and not just in a film, but in the mega-blockbuster Troy with Brad Pitt.
She is short, fragile, somehow transparent, bright-eyed, serious, polite. She is diligent. This can be seen in the neatness of her white pressed shirt and the arrows on her black trousers, in her shiny black low shoes. She is prone to perfectionism – this is evident from her new role in the film “On the Limit.” She speaks unaccented American English and very Parisian French, but she is German, very German: “I’m not late, even when I want to be late.” She is here, in this American diner, a complete foreigner – a northerner under the scorching Los Angeles sun, a foreign body among the tanned Californian bodies.
Years are what makes us unique
She retained her atypicality, even becoming a star here. She has other idols (she talks excitedly about her recent filming with Catherine Deneuve in the thriller “Everything Divides Us”), but her very measured, serious, European style reminds of Greta Garbo, the greatest local star and also a northerner who decisively left the city of diners and spotlights at the zenith of fame at 42.
Diane Kruger is now 41. Judging by her interview, when talking about a person or a person in a profession, she likes to use the word “take place.” And she succeeded – she overcame her burgher origin and fashion past, played a brilliant spy in Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds and a detective with Asperger’s syndrome in the famous TV series The Bridge. She was on the jury of the Berlin Film Festival and became the winner of the Cannes as the best actress – and in her acting dossier there is now a Shakespearean role in Fatih Akin’s film “On the Limit”.
She, this beautifully transparent, subtly refined woman, probably sums up the preliminary results with some satisfaction. Well, I think so.
Diana Krueger: Yes you! On the contrary, the most interesting things are ahead! Great freedom – in the profession, from their appearance, from the body. And over time, from the profession! 70% of my acting life is French cinema and Paris. And this is the best city for aging women. It is not ashamed to be elderly in it, the years do not hide there. Years are what makes us unique – the imprint of the lived experience. I’m still going to be a jolly old Parisian! And stylish!
Psychologies: You are joking, but you are talking. “Freedom from your appearance, from your body” … As if your appearance is some kind of terrible prison. We, people of average data, are used to believing that beauty is just a large degree of freedom. I suspect you of coquetry.
And completely in vain. As a practical German woman, I have an instrumental attitude towards my own appearance. She led me out of a provincial town of two thousand inhabitants – she did a great job. She brought me to the podium to my own money and absolute independence – well done again. She allows me to be an actress. And this is really my business … So again – thanks to her. But she’s not the only one trying. I mean something too. And I do something. And I mean more.
You know I did ballet as a child? I was obsessed with it. At 11, when we started traveling to London, to the Royal Academy of Ballet, on an exchange between ballet schools, I knew for sure that I would be the Black Swan and Giselle. And appearance did not help here, only exhausting work, strict discipline and cruel drill. When at 15 I realized that my body simply couldn’t cope with the task, appearance also had nothing to do with it. It’s me, it was I who couldn’t become Giselle. And that was an important lesson. Perhaps the most important thing to get in your youth.
More than once I chose men older than me in an unconscious search for a father.
You don’t necessarily get what you want. And so it will always be. Life doesn’t owe you anything. But ballet taught me a more important thing – that feelings, anger, joy, no matter what, can be channeled into art, into feeling on stage. And as a result, this rage of mine – over our family, over my failure at ballet – my desire to break out, my teenage passion to be seen and somehow express myself pushed me from our small town in Lower Saxony to Paris and into a model . Appearance was only … well, something like the pedals of a bicycle. Yes, and there was no outstanding appearance then!
My friend, a classmate, was fond of photography, he made me an amateur portfolio and sent it to a competition in a modeling agency. And somehow I won. And my mother … When I told her that I had to go to Paris, she was very surprised: “Model? You? You don’t look like a model!” That is, yes, it’s true – my height is not model, only 170 cm, and then it was even less … So, just a thin pointed-nosed blonde.
And then you were not offended by your mother?
You know, we had such a… well, somewhat chaotic life. My father drank terribly, was a real alcoholic – therefore, until the age of 25, I practically didn’t even know the taste of alcohol, I was afraid of heredity. Mom went through god knows what with him. I was 13 when she grabbed my brother and I, he is younger than me, and we quickly moved out of the house. Mom was left alone with two teenagers. There was little money, but things were the other way around …
Do you know that moms always want the best for us? She wanted me, like people, to finish school and become an accountant. A faithful piece of bread under all circumstances, and – for her it was very important – that I would never depend on a man. She saw the modeling perspective as just a complete dependence – on male designers and owners of fashion houses. And from her point of view, the model is not a profession. And I wanted to go to the big world, away from our town and family past.
I was so angry then! And I felt the strength to become someone else
Before Paris, we had to undergo training in Hamburg. Yes, for me, even Hamburg was the capital of the universe! Mom never let me leave school. She agreed to a year of absence – that I would try and, if there was no result, I would return to school. But everything worked out. Now I could also have a 16-year-old daughter. Yes, under no circumstances would I let her go to Paris alone. But mom did. She believed in me – in my willpower, in rationality, in reasonableness. I felt it. And so I was not offended, of course.
And then you ended your modeling career. They changed their field of activity. They did not stay in the fashion industry, as many models do. Not married to a crown prince, a French or British aristocrat, how lucky some of them …
How do I explain this… I’m 22, I have an apartment in New York and an apartment in Paris. I fully support my mother and brother. Everything is very good. But you see… When two years later I saw that the fashion of the 60s had returned for the second time in my modeling age… I realized that I was walking in circles. Well, just … pushing on the podium. I know French and English well, besides my native German. I go to museums, read books, almost every evening I dance in clubs. And, hell, I don’t know anything about the world at all. Only that the trends of the 60s are back in fashion.
No, I love fashion, I’m friends with people from the industry, fashion makes us dream, imagine ourselves perfect. It actually has more fantasy than consumerism. But what am I doing here? Where am I? And who am I? I was so angry then! And I felt the strength to become someone else. The actress – it seemed natural: from the catwalk to the stage. From under the spotlights – under the spotlights. The feeling that here you can do something really important, say something significant, appeared later. You can say, only now – when I played in the film “On the Limit”.
The heart is busy
Surfing together in Costa Rica, hugging on the streets of New York, the first official appearance together at the Toronto Film Festival, appearing on the red carpet of the Golden Globe as a couple … The tabloids could not miss that Krueger had a new chosen one. Yes, and the chosen one is very picturesque. Norman Reedus, 49, is Krueger’s two-time colleague – the Walking Dead-famous actor and model – who has worked for Lexus, Prada and Levi’s. But he is also a sculptor, an artist, and a photographer. And a motorcycle enthusiast with the documentary road show “Bike with Norman Reedus” on AMC. By the way, the show has a very revealing slogan: “Go wild or go home” (“Get off or stay at home”). Which, it seems, characterizes not only this TV product, but also its presenter.
Did your mother’s desire for your independence from men and your father’s alcoholism not affect your choice of women later? Sorry, but you still broke up twice after a long and serious relationship …
Well, of course they did! I’m no exception here. And it’s not about a broken marriage, although Guillaume and I were together for 7 years (Kruger and the French actor and director Guillaume Canet divorced in 2006. – Approx. ed.). And not that we broke up with Joshua after 10 years together (a serious romantic relationship connected the actress with her American colleague Joshua Jackson from 2006 to 2016. – Approx. ed.). The point, of course, is the positive figure of the father in general. More than once I chose those who were much older than me – in an unconscious search for a father, apparently. There are people who suffered from the fact that I did not see in them the possibility of this kind of fatherhood. I did not find reality in them, did not believe that they would actually be there.
But I broke up with Guillaume and Josh for other reasons. Guillaume and I got married very young. And they developed somehow separately from each other, each in its own way. I must confess: I don’t believe in marriage. I believe in heartfelt affection, in a commitment that is deep within you. There is no paper that will keep people close to each other. I liked the idea of one friend: people should get married at the end of the journey together, and not start the journey with marriage.
I love work, but we are not defined by roles, but by life
You need to get married when you are already together for sure … And with Josh … Well, listen, well, people are running out for each other. If you want, they drink each other to the bottom. Sometimes they devastate. And they understand that it is necessary to move to other sources. True, let it sound cynical, but it happens the same way.
Josh is a very big tragic actor. A true master of psychology. Have you seen The Lovers? TV series? A husband left for the sake of another, who cannot stop loving his wife who left him … A thirst for revenge and a desire to arrange his own life are fighting in him – and passion, and love, and the inability to blame the traitor. It’s awesome what he does in The Lovers! We’ve been together all these years as Josh has been building himself as a person and as an artist.
Now we are both different people. And we have turned the page. But Josh taught me one important thing. He is not me, he always wanted to become an actor, from the age of 11. But it was he who once said: “Life is more important than work, it is our most important role.” This thought struck me. I wanted to succeed, and Josh knew how. People, relatives, relationships, my three goddaughters, money, damn it, which for me is synonymous with freedom – all this is more important than roles. I love work, but we are not defined by roles, but by life. This is what freedom is. The freedom to get up one morning … or in the afternoon, if you get lazy, and say to yourself: fuck it all, I’m leaving for Chile and I will live there!
In Chile? But why in Chile?
There is so much beauty there … There is so much beauty neither in the Louvre, nor in the Metropolitan Museum, neither in books, nor in films … Last year I walked almost the whole country on foot. And I even wanted to stay there.
Three strange affections of Diane Kruger
Red
A star who refuses the services of stylists (“I’m a former model and … in general!”) Can afford a lot. For example, for walks on the red carpet, she prefers red-orange outfits. In the last two years alone, she has worn them to the Lola Awards, the New York premiere of Undercover Scam, the Vanity Fair reception, the Venice and Cannes Film Festivals, and about a dozen other events.
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Perhaps this habit would not have formed with the actress without her friend Lucy Liu, whom Kruger met at the beginning of her American career – the ladies have a common agent. The fact is that Lew is a frantic theatergoer. She does not miss a single premiere on Broadway, travels to London and Berlin for impressions. When Kruger is in New York, her evenings are busy – she has become Lew’s main companion on trips to the theater.
Stairs
“I have always chosen buildings without elevators for my life. They are homely, warmer, and … well, I like to walk up the stairs, Diana wondered to herself. But soon she began to go to film promotional tours with 30 costumes for different occasions. And one day, the poor thing, used to carrying suitcases herself, got out of the car, looked at the windows of the apartment in the East Village (on the fourth floor), then at the luggage … and said: “Never again!” Now she lives in a skyscraper.