Diane Kruger says getting back into character for the sequel to National Treasure, National Treasure: Book of Secrets, was a snap. Part of the reason why it was so easy to slip back into the role of Abigail Chase was because the cast and filmmakers had stayed in touch for the three years in between films.
However, although they were all receptive to the idea of a sequel, that didn’t mean they blindly signed up for the second National Treasure movie. “Both Nic [Cage] and myself and Jon [Turteltaub] were a little cautious about do we really want to make a sequel? We never anticipated when we shot the first one that we were going to make a sequel, so that is a weird thing for an actor. You go, ‘I don’t know...’ And then they showed us a synopsis of this one, the plot, and it was terribly interesting - the assassination and the whole thing. We cautiously signed on with the right to leave if the script did not turn out so well.”
Kruger loved the script and the fact her character comes more into her own in the second movie. “She’s more fun. She’s lighter and more sure of herself. She is so smart and so strong. I would like to be a little bit more like her,” admitted Kruger.
Kruger was never good at history in school because she couldn’t remember dates. “But I was fascinated with history. I am very well traveled. I make it a point to always go to the monuments and read up about it,” said Kruger. “If anything I hope this movie would encourage that. It is one thing to read about it in a book and remember a date, but it is another to stand in front of Mt. Rushmore and see it. I just think people should travel more, if they can.”
Working with Cage for the second time was quite an experience for the German-born actress. “He’s wild. You never know what you are going to get. Every day is different. He comes to the set and you don’t know what mood he is going to be in. And his mind goes four times faster than mine. He picks you up and takes you on this wave kind of thing.”
Academy Award-winner Helen Mirren joined the cast for the sequel as did Ed Harris who Kruger had worked with before on Copying Beethoven. Kruger admired how both Mirren and Harris approached the big-budget action drama. “They take this kind of job just as serious as the little pieces. They are not snobbish about it. They know as well as everybody else there is no greater prize or reward than an audience. Once you have an audience they will follow you anywhere.”
Mirren never broke out her Queen-ly accent but Kruger admits that even without it, the cast was a bit intimidated - at first. “She has that English accent anyway. The first day everyone goes, ‘Helen Mirren's going to come to the set today.’ Everybody learned their lines and were very serious about it,” recalls Kruger. “And then she comes on and [with an English accent], ‘Darling, I can’t remember any of these words. It is impossible to say.’ Then she put them on walls or on the table because she couldn’t remember.”
As for physical hardships on the set, Kruger says it was the time spent in the water that was the most difficult aspect of the shoot. “It sounds silly but you are in water for three weeks, every day. You are fighting water currents, waterfalls. It is loud,” explained Kruger. “You have to scream your dialogue in a confined space with 60 people. It is like gross water. It gets old real fast. We had about a week on the big waterfall set, and then 2 1/2 weeks in the drowning room. And a couple more going down into the City of Gold and water and stuff.”
For the long chase sequence, Kruger held on while Nicolas Cage was in the driver’s seat. “You know, as actors you don’t get to do some of the crazy stuff but they had this thing where it looked like he was driving but there was someone actually on top of the car that actually wheels for us. So when we hit the bus, we actually hit the bus, but not as hard. You had no control of the car. You can’t break. You totally trust this guy with your life. That was pretty awesome.”
