Diane Kruger wasn’t sure whether another adaptation of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos' iconic novel from 1782, Les Liaisons Dangereuses was a good idea.
The novel had already been adapted into the hit 1988 film Dangerous Liaisons starring John Malkovich, Glenn Close, and Michelle Pfeiffer, which Kruger says is "pretty perfect," as well as the 1999 film Cruel Intentions starring Reese Witherspoon, Ryan Phillippe, and Sarah Michelle Gellar.
"I wasn't sure it needed another remake or adaptation," she confessed to People.
But when she read the script of the HBO series The Seduction, Diane realized that it offered a different look at the characters.
"What drew me to this, when I initially read the script, was that, as I grow older — and we know the story so well and we've seen movies and we've read the books — it occurred to me that those stories are usually told through the eyes of a male protagonist, through the male gaze, and those characters are well-rounded and tell the story and they become these heroines and protagonists," she explained.
She wondered, "What would happen if you look back at these stories, without necessarily changing them, but just seeing them through the female gaze?"
The Seduction stars Diane Kruger as seductress Madame de Rosemonde, Anamaria Vartolomei as Marquise de Merteuil, Vincent Lacoste as Sebastian Valmont, and Emily in Paris heartthrob Lucas Bravo as Comte de Gercourt.