Diane Kruger's Real Name: Diane Heidkrüger

Quick answer: Diane Kruger was born Diane Heidkrüger on July 15, 1976, in Algermissen, near Hildesheim in Lower Saxony, Germany. She works under a shortened form of her family surname. She trained in ballet and modeled before acting, then starred in Troy, National Treasure, Inglourious Basterds, and In the Fade (filmportal.de; Library of Congress).

Real name and early life

Germany's national film database, filmportal.de, states that Kruger was "born on July 15, 1976 in Algermissen near Hildesheim as Diane Heidkrüger." In English the surname is often written Heidkruger, without the umlaut. The Library of Congress name authority files her as "Kruger, Diane, 1976-." It also confirms the July 15, 1976, birth date and Algermissen, Lower Saxony, as her birthplace.

Both filmportal and the LOC record say she first trained as a dancer, studying with the Royal Ballet in London until an injury ended that career. She returned to Germany and became a successful fashion model, then moved to Paris and began acting around 2001. In an interview with The Talks, she said she tried a method acting class for one day, but "they asked me to be an artichoke." She studied instead at Le Cours Florent, an old Paris theater school, working on classical material such as Victor Hugo.

Career highlights

Kruger's first film was the thriller The Piano Player (2003), opposite Dennis Hopper and Christopher Lambert. She told The Talks that Hopper called her "the greenest person I've ever seen" and "taught me everything," including not to hide from the camera. In 2004 she played Helen (listed as Helena by filmportal) in Wolfgang Petersen's Troy and starred with Nicolas Cage in National Treasure, a role she repeated in Book of Secrets (2007).

Her European work includes the World War I drama Merry Christmas (Joyeux Noël, 2005), Copying Beethoven (2006), and Farewell, My Queen (2012), in which she played Marie Antoinette. In Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (2009), she played a German film star involved in a plot against Hitler, a role that filmportal says won her the Goldene Kamera for best international actress. She also served on the jury of the 58th Berlin International Film Festival.

On television, she led FX's The Bridge as detective Sonya Cross. Fatih Akin's In the Fade (Aus dem Nichts, 2017) gave her her first lead role entirely in German, along with a German Film Award nomination and Bavarian Film Award recognition.

Name notes for searchers

Kruger is a shortened, umlaut-free version of her birth surname, Heidkrüger. Her screen credit has always been Diane Kruger, and she kept her first name unchanged.