In the 2002 film The Bourne Identity, Franka Potente plays Marie Kreutz.
Marie is a German drifter whom Jason Bourne meets while trying to escape American consulate security in Zürich. Bourne offers her $20,000 to drive him to Paris, where he hopes to investigate the identities and passports found in his Swiss safe-deposit box. Her decision to help him becomes central to the film’s emotional as well as practical storyline.
Potente was already internationally known for starring in the 1998 German film Run Lola Run. The Bourne Identity’s filmmakers originally imagined Marie as a Canadian economist, but after casting Potente they rewrote the character as a German woman, making her nationality and language skills fit the actor more naturally.
Marie Kreutz is sometimes confused with Nicky Parsons, played by Julia Stiles, or Pamela Landy, played by Joan Allen. Those characters belong to the wider Bourne story, but neither is Potente’s character in the 2002 film. Potente reprised Marie in The Bourne Supremacy in 2004.