Diane Kruger. “The difficulty of the film in Les Shrouds was especially the nudity”

The Shrouds:Directed by David Cronenberg at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, it opens with an image of a corpse, Becca, played by Diane Kruger, hovering above a luminous creature, a metaphysical firefly representing her soul. In turn playing the deceased, the latter’s twin sister and the ghost, the actress is perhaps the soul of the Canadian film, inspired by the death of his own wife, Carolyn, in 2017. VeilsIn Cronenberg’s dub, Vincent Cassel invents a system of connected tombs that allows animals to “communicate” with them. A story that prolongs and intensifies the director’s mourning, in which Diane Kruger is immersed. Body and soul.

Madame Figaro: What attracted you? The Shrouds: ?
Diane Kruger: David Cronenberg. I was already a big fan before I met him and never in my life could I believe that he would invite me on tour with him. When I got the script, I really liked it, but I didn’t know that it was partly autobiographical. He was the one who taught me that on our first date. It was a shock to me because I got into his private life, a very painful part of his life. It is a special film, very exciting.

What do you like about David Cronenberg movies?
His very own universe. I’m not a big fan of gray films, but David always has a tone to him, something absurd and yet very piercing on a human level. I remember seeing it to fly it paralyzed me, I have very strong memories of it, it’s rare. Above all, when you are an actor, you want to leave yourself, invest yourself in the films of filmmakers that take you elsewhere, of which cinema itself is almost a genre. I was very proud to be able to share it with her.

David Cronenberg is also the director of Transformed Bodies. You involved a lot of yourself in the film. we see you naked, dead, mutilated, and you play two characters… How did it feel to put yourself through so much work?

For me, the difficulty in this film was mainly the nudity. I very rarely take nude pictures. it’s not because I’m modest, it’s just something I don’t usually do. In The Shrouds:, I felt exposed because on the one hand it was me, but also because I’m playing a character whose body is ravaged by disease. The intimate scenes were more disturbing because I found myself behind closed doors with my director, someone who was very modest but for whom they were supposed to remind us of the hard times, and my co-star Vincent Cassel, who was like to him

Your beautiful souvenir from the Cannes Film Festival.

Obviously, the last time I went there I won the translation award In The Fade, by Fatih Akin. With all the darkness surrounding this film, its making, and the mentally and physically exhausting shooting, this recognition feels like someone opened it. And I could breathe again.