Diane Kruger flew to Germany to convince Quentin Tarantino to cast her in Inglorious Basterds

Martin Macdonald - 18 October 2023, 09:12 Share

Diane Kruger has revealed that she paid for her own flight to Germany to convince Quentin Tarantino to cast her in Inglorious Basterds.

In the WWII epic, Kruger ended up playing the role of Bridget von Hammersmark, an actress who acts as a mole for the British Army. Tarantino actually wrote the role for actress Nastassja Kinski, but a deal could not be agreed with her, so he was forced to find someone else.

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Kruger was determined to land the role, though Tarantino initially refused her as she wasn't, in his opinion, authentically German enough.

"For Inglorious Basterds, Tarantino didn't want to hire me. He wrote it for someone else, he wanted someone 'authentically German,' which he thought I wasn't," she at the Zurich Film Festival this week.

"I had to fly to Germany on my own dime and he asked me to learn 15 pages of dialogue, in German and in English. It was incredibly hard and I had two days to prepare, but I knew I was right for the part. I came in and he said: 'You can take your script.' I replied: 'I don't need a script.'

Once Kruger was cast, though, she and Tarantino started making magic together.

"Once you are chosen, it's like he loves you. You can't do wrong and he will be there to support you. He sits right next to the camera and you feel him staring at you. He just loves actors and making movies," she added.

In Bridget's death scene in the movie, she is strangled by Hans Landa, but the hands being used in the shot are actually those of Tarantino himself.