GOOD DECISION

Actress Diane Kruger finds that fear is one of her biggest motivators. After being terrified she wasn’t up to the challenge of “In The Fade,” she accepted the leading role anyway.

It turned out be a good decision because she not only racked up rave reviews for the movie but also netted the Best Actress prize at May’s Cannes Film Festival.

But, even now, when Kruger thinks back to her initial reaction to the screenplay, she still recalls feelings of dread and anxiety.

“I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to convey as much pain as my character’s going through,” says the actress. “I kept thinking, ‘how do I get from there to there?’ “

In the movie, which is directed by Fatih Akin, Kruger

TRAVEL

plays Katja, a woman whose life disintegrates when her Turkish husband and young son are the victims of a bomb attack by NeoNazis. A trial ensues but the perpetrators get off, leaving Katja to seek her own brand of justice.

“I started prepping the film as soon as Fatih and I agreed to do it together, about six months before [production began],” says the actress. “I started going to a lot of self-help groups in New York where the [participants] were families of murder [victims].

“As time passed, and I was able to observe and witness what those families were going through, and as I started listening to the individual stories, it started to creep up in me and then haunt me. At night, I couldn’t think about anything else.”

Originally, Akin imagined that “In The Fade” would be anchored by a male protagonist but as he began developing the screenplay, he changed direction.

“The hero was in the very early stage of the story a man,’ he recalls. “But that felt like Charles Bronson kind of stuff. It felt like stuff I had seen before. I wrote myself into several dead ends.

“Then, I had the idea to change the sex of the [hero] and suddenly all the dead ends were opportunities, like open doors. They all fell down and I knew it was right.

“Mothers, for me, are fascinating. They’re really heroes in a way. I live with a mother. They have tough jobs. Take the kid from the mother, and what’s left? That was fascinating somehow.” Even though Kruger was born and raised in Germany, she’d never acted in a German film before. She moved away from home when she was 16 to pursue a modeling career and didn’t become interested in acting until years later.

Until her performance in “In The Fade,” she worked primarily in Hollywood, partnering Brad Pitt in “Troy,” Nicolas Cage in “National Treasure,” Liam Neeson in “Unknown” and Bryan Cranston in “The Infiltrator.”

“I’ve always wanted to make a German film,” says the actress, 41, who is fluent in German, French and English. “It’s just that I left so long ago and I don’t really know anyone in the German film industry.

“The appeal of this script, apart from the fact that it was Fatih, was also that it felt like a very universal film. Even though it’s in the German language, what it talks about is such a global issue. And the sentiments of grief, empathy and what my character is going through: I felt like the story could take place

PHOTO COURTESY OF MAGNOLIA PICTURE Diane Kruger, Numan Acar, Denis Moschitto and Samia Chancrin in “In The Fade.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF MAGNOLIA PICTURE Diane Kruger and Denis Moschitto in “In The Fade.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF MAGNOLIA PICTURE Diane Kruger in “In The Fade.”