Diane Kruger spoke out on Tuesday about her experience working with director Quentin Tarantino after actress Uma Thurman described disturbing incidents with him during the filming of “Kill Bill.”
Kruger, who starred in Tarantino’s 2009 film “Inglourious Basterds,” posted a message to Instagram defending the director and saying he “treated me with utter respect and never abused his power or forced me to do anything I wasn’t comfortable with.” She also said she stood with Thurman and survivors of sexual assault and abuse.
Kruger wrote that she posted the message because her name has been mentioned in numerous articles since Thurman came forward with stories about the filming of “Kill Bill.”
Over the weekend, The New York Times published an interview with Thurman in which she came forward with sexual assault allegations against disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein. She spoke candidly of her experience filming “Kill Bill,” a Weinstein-produced film, which included unsettling stories about Tarantino. The director forced Thurman to drive a car she knew to be unsafe, which resulted in her crashing and sustaining injuries to her knees and neck that she still deals with today.
During filming, Tarantino also insisted on stepping in for other actors in particularly abusive scenes.
“Thurman says that in ‘Kill Bill,’ Tarantino had done the honors with some of the sadistic flourishes himself, spitting in her face in the scene where Michael Madsen is seen on screen doing it and choking her with a chain in the scene where a teenager named Gogo is on screen doing it,” the Times’ Maureen Dowd wrote.
The anecdote reminded some readers of a 2009 interview Kruger gave when promoting “Inglourious Basterds.” Kruger told Parade magazine that Tarantino stood in for actor Christoph Waltz to strangle her during the filming of a particular scene.
“The funny part is that Quentin’s hands are in the close-up,” she said at the time. “I won’t give away the name of the actor who kills me, but Quentin said, ‘He’s not going to do it right, it’ll either be too much or too little. I know exactly what I need and I think I should just do it.’ I have to say it was very strange being strangled by the director.”
Tarantino responded to Thurman’s accusations in an interview with Deadline published Monday. He said the car crash was the “biggest regret” of his life, but defended his actions stepping in to spit on and choke her. He also defended his decision to step in and strangle Kruger.
Later on Monday, Thurman thanked Tarantino for giving her the footage of the crash, something she’d sought for years. He did so “with full knowledge it could cause him personal harm, and I am proud of him for doing the right thing and for his courage,” she wrote.
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