Category: diane kruger

Diane Kruger covers the January issue of Tatler. She’s promoting a new movie, Marlowe, based on Raymond Chandler’s The Black-Eyed Blonde. She’s also promoting a children’s book she wrote during the pandemic called A Name From the Sky, a celebration of names. As such, she’s revealed her four-year-old daughter’s name after keeping it quiet all this time. Her daughter is named Nova Tennessee Reedus. Diane and Norman Reedus are still together, and they’re raising Nova all over the world. Diane talks a lot about her daughter in this Tatler piece too, among other subjects. Some highlights:

On the nomadic actor life: ‘We teach [our daughter] that she is at home in the world, that we have friends all over the world [and] that we really don’t have to miss people because we’re just going to go for a little bit and then come back. We’re very lucky to have homes in different places.’ (The Kruger-Reedus property portfolio also includes a home in Paris, as well as a ‘little country house’ in upstate New York.)

Playing Helen of Troy: ‘I mean, Helen of Troy obviously was based on the way I looked, But I don’t think they could have given it to any model, right? They wouldn’t have given it to me if I didn’t have at least a little bit of talent.’ When the film – though not her performance – was ravaged by critics, Kruger retreated to the world of European cinema. ‘I was able to continue making French movies and slowly the perception changed… people started seeing me in other things.’

Nova understands German: ‘I speak to her in German all the time. And she understands it all. She’s a very outgoing young girl.’ In Latin, Nova means new, which felt ‘very personal’ to Kruger and Reedus, who met when they were 39 and 46 respectively. Nova’s middle name is Tenessee, in tribute to Kruger’s discovery that she was pregnant while on a motorbike trip with Reedus in the state.

On her daughter’s privacy:‘You know, what you’re comfortable with changes with time. When she was first born, you really try to shield her from all public gaze. I felt very strongly about that, which I didn’t know I would. But as she grew older, it didn’t… We have never shown her face… all of our friends obviously know what her name is and it just tied in with the book. It seems natural to tell her and the world how special she is to us and how much we put into the meaning of her name.’

Her previous relationships: ‘I didn’t want children for a long time. I really liked my life the way it was. In my late thirties, I was starting to think about it but I wasn’t in a place in my relationship at the time – or whatever – where that was going to be a possibility and so I had kind of given up hope and I thought it was just too late. And I was OK with that. While writing this book, it definitely felt like sometimes life gives you things when you least expect them but most need them. The arrival of Nova has changed my life – our lives – in the best possible way. It’s just amazing that you thought you were one thing but you’re meant to do something completely different.’

Life with Norman Reedus: At home, work talk with Reedus is kept to a minimum. ‘This is maybe the first time in my adult life that I’m in a relationship where I respect him to do his thing. I want him to feel he can do anything he’s interested in and I would support that. And I expect that the other way around [from him].’

Paris vs. NYC: ‘Paris is a smaller city… I started out in France, so a lot of people know me there for French movies,’ Kruger seems more at ease in Europe than America. Currently, in New York, ‘There’s a lot of crime, a lot of dirt everywhere. The news is Trump, Trump, climate change. It’s oppressive sometimes. Moving to Europe – it’s not like they don’t have their problems – but it just felt like we were getting out of our bubble. It’s a change of scenery that has been really good for us.’

France has less ageism: ‘When you see people out in restaurants, it seems that there are so many attractive women of all ages. I’m sure there is sexism and the same issues that Americans face, but I know a lot of women [in France] who are happy with their second, third marriage. They have boyfriends way into their fifties.’

[From Tatler]

“In my late thirties, I was starting to think about it but I wasn’t in a place in my relationship at the time – or whatever – where that was going to be a possibility and so I had kind of given up hope and I thought it was just too late. And I was OK with that.” I’m not mad at her about the Joshua Jackson stuff at this point, it’s water under the bridge and they both moved on with people who suit them a lot better. But also: it feels like Diane wasn’t “ready” to have a kid with Joshua, her partner of a decade, and then she cheated on Joshua with Reedus and suddenly she’s ready to have a baby with Reedus? I mean, sometimes it happens that way and when you know you know. But it also feels like she’s always blaming Joshua for her own bullsh-t.

Cover courtesy of Tatler, additional pics courtesy of Instar and Avalon Red.

Diane Kruger is promoting The 355, the film Jessica Chastain put together about lady spies from different countries, all coming together to work on some mysterious spy thing. Kruger plays the German spy and they began filming it when she was six months postpartum. She gave birth to her daughter (whose name we will never know) in November 2018, and Kruger started filming The 355 in the summer of 2019. Just in case you’re wondering about the timeline! Kruger spoke about her postpartum body, motherhood and more with Women’s Health. You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:

Preparing her body for stunts post-partum: “It was daunting. But after six months of being a full-time mom, I was ready to get back to me, and to get out of the house. It was fun to have a few hours away each day to focus on my body and my work. It was exhilarating to go back to working out—to lifting heavy, kicking higher, and trusting my body.”

She worked out while pregnant too: Throughout her pregnancy, she worked out for 30 minutes a day, walking, doing the elliptical, or performing a squat routine with five-pound weights.

She relates to her German spy character: “I think I innately strive to do things well and properly and follow through. And when I was younger, I was certainly very guarded; I think that’s part of our [German] culture.”

She hates running: “I really hate running. I like to walk—I live in New York. We walk everywhere.”

Working with an all-lady cast: “It felt great to work with girls, and there was no weirdness on-set. Jessica made sure all of the actresses were paid the same; we all own a piece of the movie. Regardless of how the film does, it was one of the most complete experiences. Being able to be heard and valued is so important—not just in what I do, but everywhere. One thing that was wonderful about this film was that many of us were mothers. We were allowed to bring our children to set and had a trailer for the kids. That was a lovely thing, where you can sense that the producer is a woman with a child.”

Motherhood changes everything: “Everything changed with motherhood—it’s such a cliché, but it’s true. The way I look at work is different. I love to work; in fact, I cherish it more today than I did before, but at the same time, you look at everything from a different angle. It’s not: What’s it going to do for my career? It’s more about: Could it fit into my schedule? How can I make it work? Is it going to be worthwhile?”

Mom-brain: “I always feel tense, like I’m forgetting 5,000 things a day. I often feel like I don’t take enough time to stop for a second and take care of me, so I’m trying to get better about that.” When she can, she gets a massage or a foot rub. After she became a mother, there was also a period when no matter how much she (hypothetically) slept, she “always looked tired.” So she started taking vegan multivitamins, which she says help her feel less depleted.

Her current workouts: In her current weekly gym routine, she does the elliptical, burpees, box jumps, situps, planks, and 20-pound squats. “It’s the moments when I don’t have to talk to anyone that help me the most. I’m a little socially awkward; I’m not good at schmoozing with people, so I’ve always looked for moments to be by myself. I was naturally skinny when I was younger, and I did a lot of ballet and ballroom dancing, so I didn’t work out traditionally. But by the time I hit about 32, I felt my metabolism change. That’s when I thought I needed to work out to be able to eat what I wanted—and I dreaded it.”

[From Women’s Health]

While I have my issues with Kruger, I kind of like her straight-forward German energy in this interview. There’s a lack of coyness about her body and her life which I like. It’s very real – metabolisms change, she cared about staying active during her pregnancy, it was tough for her to start back after she gave birth, all of it. I also hate running! Running sucks. Walking is where it’s at. This just reminds me of something else though – women who spent their childhoods in dance or ballet really have a (proverbial) leg up as adults. They’ll always have that dancer’s muscle memory. I was a gymnast as a kid and I have no muscle memory of that!

Cover & IG courtesy of Women’s Health.