by Gill Pringle at the 19th Zurich Film Festival
“I remember when I was younger, I always felt like my emotions were too big for me… like I felt I loved too much or I’m too sad. And I always felt that nothing’s ever going to come of me – like I can’t be balanced. At least I felt that way. Maybe most people feel that way? I don’t know,” she said ahead of the premiere of her new psychological thriller, Visions.
“But in a way, acting and books and movies saved my life because they allowed me to live out a life that I really desperately wanted for my private life, and so it balanced that out,” says the former model who later became known for her role opposite Brad Pitt in historical epic Troy and then as Dr Abigail Chase in National Treasure and its sequel.
But she really came into her own with her German-language debut in Fatih Akin’s In The Fade, for which she won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress.
Honoured with Zurich’s Golden Eye award, Kruger laughs as she admits that she feels too young for such a lifetime achievement gong already.
“It’s funny, because when they first told me, I was like, ‘I’m not that old, you know? Come on?!’ But actually, when they sent me this reel, it made me stop and I was like, ‘well, actually, I’ve done a lot of work’ and I could see the time obviously pass on screen. And actually, I feel very moved and also very proud,” says the 47-year-old actress who was flying solo for the award ceremony while her long-time partner, Walking Dead star Norman Reedus, was working in the US and her mother was babysitting the couple’s five-year-old daughter, Nova.
“So, when they sent me the reel of my work, it made me really reflect because there’s so many things that I had forgotten, like scenes or moments in films that I forgot, and I look at my earlier work, and often I can see this young girl or woman that was anxious, who was worried about what will come next, what’s the next gig… How’s my life gonna go? What’s my career gonna be?
“But now I’m in this moment in my life where – since I’ve become a mother – a lot of that just fell away because my priorities have changed. My daughter is number one priority. So, what’s left of that part of my life is just the joy of being able to do it.
“It feels much more intense and present and like it almost doesn’t matter what comes next, so in a way, it’s much more enjoyable to go through life like that. Obviously, when you’re young, you don’t realise that, but I can see it in some of the earlier scenes from the beginning of my career that I saw on the reel,” she says.
Despite the accolades, Kruger refuses to take herself too seriously. “It’s very easy to get lost in a certain pretentiousness that comes with the job, I think. And I’m certainly guilty of that. Maybe at the beginning of my career… Of course, it’s a very privileged world and you have fans so it’s easy to get lost in that part. I think the more real you can be and grow up in a world that’s very real, hopefully you can see through that.”
Having already proven herself as a versatile actress, her new French language film Visions – written and directed by Yann Gozlan – sees Kruger play Estelle, a successful commercial pilot married to a surgeon played by Mathieu Kassovitz. Set in the south of France, the couple are struggling with fertility as they try for a baby. Coping with extreme jetlag from long-haul flights, Estelle turns to sleeping pills which lead to hallucinations.
Certainly, as a mother, the actress can relate to sleeplessness. “And anxiousness too. I certainly have difficulties with jetlag, so I identify with that. I mean, she’s a pilot, so she does long distances all the time,” says the actress.
“I take sleeping pills too. What else are you gonna do? I don’t have the luxury to go like ‘Oh, I’ll take a week to adjust to my new time zone’.”
Training for her role as an airline captain, she says, “I learned a lot because I had to fly the plane on simulators, which is where pilots trained to become pilots. But I was not that successful at it but at least I understand the language now so that was pretty helpful – but it was not the most fun thing to do for the movie, I have to say.”
Speaking in French for this role came as second nature for the actress, who effortlessly switches between her native German and adopted French and English languages, laughing as she reveals, “When I’m angry – the German accent often comes through, and that’s when my partner usually knows and goes, ‘Oh, okay’. So, yeah, the German comes back in real and deep moments, like when I talk to Nova – I speak German to her or with my mum – but it’s like the language of comfort for me.”
Ask if Reedus is catching up with her facility for languages – the couple having lived in France for the past two years – she laughs, “He does not speak French. It’s not happening. Nova speaks more French than he does!”
For the moment, New York is home for this international couple. “But I think we’ll have one leg in France for the next couple of years. Right now, we’re back in New York, because Norman is going back to film there, so we’re gonna go back and forth like we used to, which was nice. Home is where we are, and I feel like we’re very privileged because we have a place like an apartment in the cities we live in, so it never feels like you’re staying in a hotel – instead it’s very personal.”
Perhaps Kruger’s most famous collaborator is German director Fatih Akin, with whom she hopes to make magic again, planning a series about Marlene Dietrich.
“We have a very human connection. I think he’s maybe the first one who really trusted in me and vice versa. I felt completely safe and there was no pretension from either one of us. And I was a big fan of his work. I think he’s very honest – he’s a good one. And I personally like him so much.”
Sadly, for her fans, the Dietrich project is unlikely to happen overnight. “I think we’ll make another film together before, but yeah, I just feel like we can take on anything together and I don’t know who else I would do that with, other than him,” she says.
