Interview by Elisa Leonelli
In the TV miniseries Little Disasters, based on the 2020 novel by Sarah Vaughan, Diane Kruger plays the married stay-at-home mother of two children, who suffers from postpartum depression after the birth of her third child. When she brings the infant girl to the hospital, her doctor friend (Jo Joyner) diagnoses a head injury and calls social services, then the police interrogates the mother, the father, and their best friends to find out what happened.
Diane Kruger-Little Disasters (c) Paramount
What attracted you to this complex multilayered role of a mother?
I hadn’t read this book in particular, but I’m a big Sarah Vaughan fan. I had become a mom myself (daughter Nova, born in 2018 with partner actor Norman Reedus), and while I was lucky enough to not go through postpartum depression or having intrusive thoughts, I know that a lot of my girlfriends struggled with those issues. I thought the script was incredibly insightful and very truthful to what motherhood is, and the community of women that it takes to go through that process and that time in your life, which is beautiful but also incredibly challenging for relationships. It was a great part for sure, but also it rang very true. I’m not sure if, before having had a baby myself, I would’ve been emotionally prepared for all the complex craziness that happens in your brain.
This character suffers from postpartum hallucinations. What did you learn about this syndrome?
I read a lot about postpartum intrusive or scary thoughts because I wasn’t familiar with that phenomena. I questioned my girlfriends who had gone through that, I listened to a lot of women who’ve had those thoughts and their terrifying recountings of it, the shame. What I took most away from all my research was that feeling of shame, so I tried to bring that to the role. Jess was being forced to face or admit to what has been happening, and her confusion was so intense that she didn’t really know if she hurt her baby. At one point she is genuinely questioning herself about whether or not she’s done it, but at the same time knowing that she didn’t do it. One of the discussions I had with the director and the writers was that I wanted her to be quite tough. She’s a soft person and she’s already had children in her relationship, but when she started facing intrusive thoughts, she has that feeling that she will do no matter what for her kid, as most mothers would, so she’s not a victim, she’s a fighter, and all the women I’ve ever met who’ve become mothers are that.
Did you experience the kind of loneliness that we see surrounding mothers in the series?
Yes, I definitely felt that, actually, because it is so real, whether you have postpartum or not. And I’ve really taken to motherhood, but it is an incredibly isolating time, especially in the beginning. It’s so scary, because someone hands you this kid and now you’re supposed to take care of it and just figure it out on the go. And it’s something that you can’t really talk to anyone about, not your husband, not really your girlfriends, unless they’ve had kids. So the struggles, the mom shaming and self-doubt, everything you feel about not being good enough is real and it isolates you for a long time. For me it took a good two years of being able to talk about that and admit to that. So I really saw myself in Jess to a certain extent and wanting to appear like everything was fine. And I only have one kid, I don’t even know how people handle three children. So I had a lot of empathy for her and her seemingly wanting to appear perfect and having it all. That was one of the main reasons I wanted to be part of this show.
Do you believe that there is such a thing as a perfect mother?
No. We all just try our best, and becoming a mother yourself makes you be more graceful with your own mom and what you’re reproaching your mother of. In my surroundings, I know that all moms try really hard to give their best, for sure. What is expected of mothers to just take to it naturally and love it, but that is obviously not the reality of what women go through, and it’s so not openly talked about. You can only talk between girlfriends of how you do not like your pregnancy or you hate being pregnant or you don’t really want to give natural birth or you’re being shamed for not wanting to breastfeed. That is still very much a reality, and there is also judgment from other women for sure.
Why are such expectation put on women as mothers, but not on men as fathers?
Obviously there’s some basic things that all of us parents should provide our children with, like education and a loving and nurturing home. But when it comes to men, I know some really great dads that are very hands-on from the get-go, and then there’s others who just don’t know what to do with a baby. It’s a question that I ask myself as well, how we can change those classic roles. Some men want to be part of it and they are, and then others feel like it’s not what they love and want to do. It’s very complex, it’s a hard answer because it’s a very personal journey for everyone, also in how we raise our boys, what we as mothers tell boys how they should treat women and girls.
Another movie this year, Die My Love, directed by Lynne Ramsay, starring Jennifer Lawrence, deals with postpartum depression. Last year Nightbitch by Marielle Heller with Amy Adams was about a mother feeling like she was changing into an animal. Why do you think these themes are in the Zeitgeist today?
I think it’s because more women are in positions of decision making in our industry, and we are finally wanting to portray women as they actually are and the struggles we’re going through; so we are seeing more and more of these more complete portraits of women and mothers at all ages. In a way, it is a great time to be a woman, because there are more outlets. I used to make only films and now I do a lot of TV or streaming shows, because the opportunities are there.
The creator of Little Disasters is a woman, and the director is also a woman, Eva Sigurðardóttir. How was Eva to work with?
Eva is pretty badass. She is a working mother herself, she had a two-year-old at home while we were making this series. So it was interesting to have a young mom making a show about this, and she was intense. In shooting a TV miniseries there’s a rhythm that is not easy to keep, page-wise, and she really wanted it to be very energetic, so she kept that pace. She’s from Iceland, and we shared a certain no-nonsense attitude towards things. So it was great, I felt like she really knew what she was talking about.
Diane Kruger-The Seduction (c) Caroline Dubois
You also acted in a French TV series titled The Seduction in English, Merteuil in France. How would you describe your role?
I play Madame de Rosemonde, who is Valmont’s aunt, I am the one who takes under my wings and forms the future Madame de Merteuil as a young girl. That was the character played by Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons by Stephen Frears. It’s like a prequel to Les liaisons dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. I was hesitant to take on another remake or adaptation of that classic story. I wasn’t sure if we really needed that, but what I thought was interesting in revisiting a story that we all know is that, traditionally, they are being shown through the eyes of male protagonists, but we are taking a look through a female lens of what that same story must have felt like from a woman’s point of view. And without changing the story, it changes the story, it says something about what must have been like for women in the 18th century. My character may have been one of the first to choose a nontraditional life that was not defined by men, she chose not to marry and lived her life pretty much like a man. So a feminist story that is shifting the gaze is really interesting, and it’s something that we should look at.
As an actress who worked in Germany, France, England and the United States, have you noticed that the power of women in the film industry has changed considerably from when you first started?
Yes, the times are changing and they have changed, there’s a lot more opportunities for women. There’s a real movement of female directors, in positions that have been traditionally held by men, female voices that are being heard. Of course, there’s still more space for improvement, but now more than ever is a time to hear female voices, and those characters have become more complex. I also think that men’s minds have opened up to wanting to see more of it, it’s not just women that want to tell different stories. We’ve always been surrounded by great women in movies, by female stories, obviously, but the writing has changed and it’s a whole new world. I mean, when I talked to Anamaria Vartolomei, for example, who plays the young Merteuil in The Seduction, the things that I was confronted with as a young actress, she had never had to deal with. So I do think things are changing and it’s a great time to be a woman.
English version of interview published by Best Movie Italy
Read Italian at this link