Hollywood can be a living nightmare for young actresses trying to make their mark in the studio system. Some of that has improved in the age of #MeToo and accountability; however, only a few short years ago, actresses were still having encounters with predatory monsters like Harvey Weinstein. It’s not an industry with a tremendous amount of empathy and human understanding, as German actress Diane Kruger (“Inglorious Basterds”) recently explained.
Kruger is promoting her new Roku series “Swimming With Sharks” at SXSW in Austin. Based on the 1994 comedy of the same name, starring Kevin Spacey, the movie detailed how Hollywood execs could be huge, abusive, monstrous assh*les that treated people like garbage and utterly dehumanize them. Given the show’s context and experience with that milieu in the past, Kruger was extremely candid with Variety about her Hollywood career in a recent interview, revealing that she has “definitely come across the Weinsteins of this world from the get-go.”
READ MORE: ‘Swimming With Sharks’ Review: Roku’s Thriller Welcomes Pulp Over Prestige [SXSW]
Explaining the context of her series, Kruger is now in the role of the Hollywood boss-from hell, and describing her own all-too-familiar experience, Kruger discussed how an unnamed studio head at Warner Bros. who made her “Troy” audition/test an exploitive experience, “I remember testing for ‘Troy,’ and having to go to the studio head in costume. And I felt like meat, being looked up and down and was asked, ‘Why do you think you should be playing this?’”
“I’ve been put in situations that were so inappropriate and so uncomfortable,” Kruger continued. “I think when I first started out, it just felt like; this is what it’s like. This is what Hollywood is like. Also, I come from modeling, and believe me, [that industry has its] moments.”
Released in 2004, “Troy” was a rather massive production for Warner Bros. at the time as director Wolfgang Petersen (along with other filmmakers) tried to replicate the enormous success of Ridley Scott’s Oscar-winner “Gladiator” with his adaptation of Homer’s Greek epic “The Iliad.” “Troy” starred Brad Pitt as Achilles and Kruger as Helen, the woman that started the legendary war between Greece and Troy. The film cost the studio $175 million and nearly earned $500 million at the global box office; while a lot of money was on the line, it doesn’t excuse objectifying actors and making them feel like “meat.”