The actress is starring in Roku Channel's new series, 'Swimming With Sharks.'
Diane Kruger is clarifying her recent comments. ET's Will Marfuggi spoke to the 45-year-old actress, weeks after she told Variety that she "felt like meat" when she was testing for her role in Troy, and she further explained her experience auditioning for the 2004 flick.
"A lot of things get taken out of context. Those words actually never came out of my mouth," Kruger told ET of her Troy comments, before clarifying how that testing process made her feel.
"It was a moment very early on in my career where I was a nobody, hadn't done anything," she said. "Being put in a position that made me feel uncomfortable, just by the fact that I had no clue what was going on, who this very powerful CEO was, that I had to please in a way that I would get this job, so that's really what I was trying to say."
Since Kruger's Troy experience, "Hollywood certainly has changed," the actress said. "It can be dark. It can bright. I actually think it's a really good time to be a woman in Hollywood."
The darker side of Hollywood is something Kruger explores in her new project. The actress stars alongside Kiernan Shipka in Roku Channel's drama series Swimming With Sharks, which follows a Hollywood assistant (Shipka) who turns the tables on an abusive boss (Kruger).
"I think that Kiernan's generation will grow up with a very different experience than a lot of women have in the past," Kruger said. "I just think bad behavior is no longer acceptable, whether that's in Hollywood or in other businesses. Hollywood, yes, is the backdrop to our story, but it is a metaphor for abuse of power everywhere."
As for the series itself, Kruger said she was drawn to the "unique tone" of the script. She also found that, with her character, "it's just so fun to be bad."
"A lot of the characters or people that I've met in my career... are in this character. So I just base them on people that I've met along the way, or have observed treating their assistants a certain way," Kruger said. "What really drew me was the duality of this character... We want everything, and so that presents problems for us sometimes."
Despite the dark premise, Kruger promised viewers that Swimming With Sharks, which is based on the 1994 film by director George Huang, is "a fun show."
"When we both got the scripts for the first time we couldn't put it down because it was a page turner. You go, 'No way, this just happened.' It's almost too much, but it's so great that it happened," Kruger said. "I'm hoping that our audience will feel the same way. You can't not binge watch this."
All episodes of Swimming With Sharks will premiere April 15 on the Roku Channel.
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