DIANE KRUGER

PS       Can you tell me a bit about your background?

DK      I come from a very small town in Germany, a little village of about 2,000 people. So very woodsy and idyllic for a young child — and very boring for a young teenager. I loved going to the library. That was a big part of my childhood and really the only thing you could do in my village. After school, that was the standard, to go and exchange books. From a young age I loved to read — stuff like Pippi Longstocking, which was very popular. And then as I grew older, because I dropped out of school when I was 16, I read a lot of the classics. Because I did my studies from afar, it was stuff like Fitzgerald, and I went to drama school in France, which was classical theatre school, so we did a lot of the classics like Victor Hugo.

PS       What was it like for you moving there at that age, coming from a small town in Germany?

DK      We were definitely let loose into the wild, you know? Pay phones were still the only source of my mom being able to check up on me. It was great. I didn’t speak French so that was a little daunting for me at first, but it also forced me to learn the language really quickly. And it’s Paris. I still love it. I still live there. I make more French films than American films. It’s still my ongoing second home.

PS       And you’ve also been in New York? For how long now?

DK      I’ve kept a place in the US since I was 18.

PS       I was watching some clips of old films of yours and Frankie, which was filmed in New York in the early 2000’s, really stood out. You had to live in a mental institution for a bit during the filming?

DK      Yeah, it was a very small film, very low budget so the only way for us to really film in institutions like that was to live there and spend a lot of time participating in the sessions with the doctors and all the patients there. We were required to help prepare food and help clean up. In a way it was an eye-opening experience of what real illness is, what depression is. At the same time, on a human scale, it was a very humbling experience to be faced with so much human suffering. While it was very difficult, and I’m not sure I’d do that again, it was an incredible experience. But very exhausting, as you can imagine.

PS       Oh wow, yeah I can’t imagine. And you’re staying there too, so there’s little reprieve.

DK      They’re not actors, right? So you’re always on. You have to try and improvise on guidelines that the script required to try and engage with them on that level. And that can happen any time, you don’t know how they’re going to react. Obviously they weren’t learning any lines or anything. That was the hardest part for me I think, especially as a young actress.

[…]

PS       As you’re a Saint Laurent ambassador and wearing the SS24 collection on this Issue’s cover, let’s start by discussing your experience with the brand? What’s it like working with Anthony Vaccarello and his team?

DK      I admire Anthony’s sense of the strong, sexy je ne sais quoi woman. He has a very cinematic vision of the brand that perfectly blends the essence of Parisian elegance with the mysteriousness of the silver screen.

PS       Also I love that with Saint Laurent Productions they’re so supportive of filmmakers. How impactful do you think assistance like theirs is for independent film?

DK      I think film and fashion have always created a perfect iconic blend. Who doesn’t remember what Audrey Hepburn wore in Breakfast at Tiffany’s or Uma Thurman in Kill Bill. The fact that Saint Laurent wants to be involved in independent film making is invaluable. I think it’s wonderful.

Read the full interview on Muse February Issue 63.