What can you tell me about Diane Kruger, who stars in the new FX series “The Bridge”?
—Karl Jessup, Knoxville, Tenn.
Kruger, 37, was born in Algermissen, Germany, the daughter of a bank employee and a printer. As a young girl, Kruger aspired to be a ballerina and was talented enough to earn a place at the Royal Ballet School in London.
An injury caused her to redirect her career aspirations and after quitting ballet, she moved to Paris, where she began modeling. She was quite successful, appearing in ads for top designers, including Yves Saint Laurent, Chanel, Giorgio Armani, Christian Dior and Salvatore Ferragamo.
While modeling, she studied acting at the Cours Florent and won the Classe Libre award for best actor in her class. Kruger then appeared in a few French films, before getting her break as Helen in 2004’s “Troy.”
She has since performed in “Inglourious Basterds,” “Wicker Park,” “National Treasure,” “National Treasure: Book of Secrets,” “Special Forces,” “Unknown” and “The Host.”
Kruger, who speaks German, French and English, was previously married to French actor Guillaume Canet, with whom she remains friends, but has been dating Joshua Jackson since her 2006 divorce.
Of her role in “The Bridge” as Sonya Cross, a socially awkward member of the El Paso Police Department, who is working with her Mexican counterpart to catch a serial killer operating on both sides of the Mexico-U.S. border, she says, “It’s definitely entertaining. But it also tackles things that are very much in the newspapers right now. What is also interesting is that it is about the meeting of two very different cultural backgrounds and how they take away something other than just a working relationship.”
