German-born actress Diane Kruger plays the fictional German silver screen star Bridget von Hammersmark in Tarantino's World War II film. Inglourious Basterds isn't the first WWII movie she's been offered, but it is the first one she accepted. "I was born in Germany and I work mostly in France and in the US so you can imagine, because of me being German, I get offered a lot of World War II movies. And I've never wanted to do them because I just felt like just because I'm German I don't need to associate myself with my country's history. And then this came along and I read it and I thought...my jaw dropped open and I thought, 'Wow, that's really gutsy, ballsy.' But I feel like I just thought it was cool. The tone was set from the beginning," explained Kruger at the film's LA press day. "I loved the idea being German but of my generation, I loved the idea that I through Bridget von Hammersmark is going to bring down the Third Reich. It's like, 'Let's get real!'"
Prior to this film, Kruger hadn't been cast in movies based on her nationality. And that, strangely enough, almost worked against her this time. "The story is that for this movie I nearly didn't get hired because [Tarantino] didn't believe I was German. So excuse my language but for f--k's sake, it's always something," laughed Kruger.
Kruger is an actress playing an actress in Inglourious Basterds, but an actress from a very different time period. In order to get into character, Tarantino gave her specific films to watch. "He made me watch so many movies from the '40s, not necessarily German. But when you watched them, acting was a lot more formal. People really talked - especially the women. And he really wanted to make it really clear from the first time you see her on screen that when she speaks, nobody else speaks. She had to be a commanding presence in the way she spoke from the beginning on. That allowed me then later on, you see the real Bridget...she's this Mata Hari. I like that she's not a James Bond-kind of personality. She's not this cold killing machine."
"The part was pretty much on the page. He's a very good writer, as you know, and his characters are very complete. I just think he wanted that specific difference of acting in the beginning of the film, and also just how different women held each other. I would never have sat slouched over in the movie. It's different. I think women were really women. But the movies he showed me I had never of, and actresses I'd never heard of. There's this actress he loved when he was a young man called Ilona Massey. Never heard of. She was sort of like the 'B' Dietrich. I think she was Hungarian."
Kruger never tried to copy any of the mannerisms of actresses from the 1940s, but they did serve to inspire her performance. To Kruger, what was most important was getting Bridget's presence in each scene correct and showing she was, rightly so, the center of attention. "You also have to see from the first line she says a fierce intelligence in her because if you don't believe she's the mastermind of this whole Operation Kino thing and that she was actually going to be able to pull that off, the whole character, that whole part falls flat. She had to have this cold intelligence. It was kind of a complex thing to do," said Kruger.
Getting Physical
Diane Kruger has starred in action films before (National Treasure, Troy) however her characters in those movies never go through the physical beating Kruger goes through in Inglourious Basterds. It was a new experience for Kruger and one she totally enjoyed. "It's so fun and it kind of takes so much energy. I didn't realize you had to play like you're in extreme pain," said Kruger. "It was tough. I have to say I was exhausted after this movie. I've never been allowed to be this tough. I really wanted to go above and beyond, because most people when they look at me they go, 'Oh, she's this dainty thin little Twiggy girl.' Yet I'm not like that personally at all. I see myself as much more of a tomboy, and I think that's what Quentin saw in me. I had to step up. I had to be tough and one of the guys. There's no complaining from my side. My foot gets stuck to the thing...the movie blood is so sticky when it gets hot and, you know, Quentin's like, 'More blood, blood, blood, blood...!' So at the end of the night, it was like a 12, 13 hour day and I swear to you I could not physically lift my leg up from that table. It took them 20 minutes to water it down. It's like a full on wax - no hair will ever grow on that side of my leg! It's a good thing, I guess, a funny strip."
How Will Inglourious Basterds Play in Germany?
Kruger believes her countrymen and women will embrace Tarantino's rewriting of their history. "You know what? I know it plays really well because we went to a premiere there two weeks ago," offered Kruger. "It's a funny thing that you know a lot of journalists everywhere have asked the same question, and it's kind of confusing to me because we don't to hang on to go old Adolf any longer than the rest of the world. And if we could at this point... It's such a shadow in Germany, and generations after the war that had nothing to do with it. If we could, we would have liked to have gotten rid of him a long time ago. People were cheering when he gets shot."* * * * *
Inglourious Basterds hits theaters on August 21, 2009 and is rated R for strong graphic violence, language and brief sexuality.
