{"id":887892,"date":"2026-09-08T11:30:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T11:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/887892\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T11:30:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T11:30:18","slug":"sandra-huller-telluride-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/887892\/","title":{"rendered":"Sandra H\u00fcller Telluride Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

After two Telluride Film<\/a> Festival tributes, Sandra H\u00fcller left the mountains on Sunday to return to her hometown of Leipzig, Germany, where she is raising a 15-year-old daughter and directing a play. She\u2019s still adjusting to her global rising star status. She\u2019s directing because she has given up on theater acting. <\/p>\n

The comedy \u201cToni Erdmann\u201d put her on the map in 2016, followed by her Oscar-nominated role as a woman accused of killing her husband in Justine Triet\u2019s \u201cAnatomy of a Fall\u201d (2023). She also earned raves as a bovine Nazi wife in \u201cThe Zone of Interest\u201d that year. In 2026 she took on four movies, two black-and-white European projects and two big-budget Hollywood blockbusters. She won the Berlinale Silver Bear for her performance as a 17th-century war veteran living as a man in Markus Schleinzer\u2019s \u201cRose<\/a>\u201d (MUBI), followed by her first studio gig as Eva Stratt, the scientist assigned to save the world in blockbuster \u201cProject Hail Mary\u201d (Amazon\/MGM). <\/a>And she returned to Cannes in Pawel Pawlikowski\u2019<\/a>s \u201cFatherland\u201d (MUBI) as Erika Mann, the car-driver daughter of Nobel Prize-winning novelist Thomas Mann.<\/p>\n

\"'Scream<\/a> \"Director<\/a> <\/p>\n

\u201cFatherland\u201d offers a mere slice of the scion Erika Mann, wealthy, privileged, educated, who could warrant a film of her own. The fact that she was married to the gay British poet W.H. Auden is a throwaway in the film, in which she serves as her elderly father\u2019s assistant and representative on a 1949 post-war road trip back to East and West Germany. She\u2019s in charge. \u201cShe\u2019s a race car driver, amongst other things,\u201d said H\u00fcller over coffee. \u201cShe\u2019s also an author, journalist, an actor. Pawel wanted her to be a part of this journey because, in reality, she wasn\u2019t. It was somebody else in the car. He wanted her to be the person responsible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Buick was a monster. \u201cIt\u2019s really heavy,\u201d said H\u00fcller. \u201cIt takes some effort to drive it. Because we don\u2019t have help with the steering wheel. It takes some muscle.\u201d <\/p>\n

That\u2019s what sets the German actress apart from the field. She\u2019s tall, lithe, intelligent, androgynous, vulnerable, and powerful all at once.<\/p>\n

\u201cFatherland\u201d kicks off with a bravura five-and-a-half minute locked-off single take of Klaus (August Diehl) in Cannes, sitting naked on the floor by a bed with a sleeping young man. He talks on the phone with Erika, who tries to coax her depressed drug-addict intellectual twin to come on a road trip with her back to Germany as his father accepts the Goethe prize. H\u00fcller had long wanted to work with Diehl but had to settle for a phone call from her kitchen. (They will work together on another German film, about the painter Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and his partner Erna Schilling.)<\/p>\n

Central to the journey is the dynamic between the father and the daughter, because she\u2019s really angry with him. \u201cWhen I read their letters to each other,\u201d said H\u00fcller, \u201cthey were what we say schonungslos. They didn\u2019t spare each other from criticism. They were open, but they were forgiving each other at the same time. It was a deep, respectful love that they had, and a beautiful relationship. They are in a big conflict with each other at that point of their lives, and it\u2019s painful because they love each other so much. When this loved person is dying, and they don\u2019t agree on how to deal with it, that is devastating.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to H\u00fcller, many German films have tried to portray the Manns, \u201cbut it\u2019s a complicated family structure,\u201d she said, \u201cand also a complicated moral question around them. They left Germany during the war because it was too dangerous, and as we can see in the film, some people still didn\u2019t forgive them. So it\u2019s a discussion: What would you do if you were privileged? Would you use this privilege, or would you say, \u2018I don\u2019t care, I\u2019ll stay here and watch everybody die.\u2019 It\u2019s a big topic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Erika Mann\u2019s own homosexual relationships are only slightly referenced. \u201cThe person that she meets, this other journalist,\u201d said H\u00fcller, \u201cshe\u2019s been in a relationship with her before, and they broke up for I can\u2019t remember the reason. That\u2019s also part of her freedom: not to talk about who she is and what she prefers, and I admire that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In one party scene in a night club Mann has a memorable face-off with her ex-husband Gustaf Gr\u00fcndgens, an actor who stayed behind and collaborated with the Nazis. \u201cWe always try to imagine ourselves as these superior creatures that do everything right,\u201d said H\u00fcller, \u201cbut we actually don\u2019t know what we would do in a situation like this. Joachim Meyerhoff\u00a0who was playing Gr\u00fcndgens, is an idol for me in German theater. He\u2019s somebody whom we all know, and it was a great choice to let him play this person. I felt honored that I was allowed to slap him in the face, if you know what I mean.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"AugustAugust Diehl, Hanns Zischler, Pawel Pawlikowski and Sandra H\u00fcller at the photocall for \u2018Fatherland\u2019 at the 79th Festival de Cannes held at Palais des Festivals<\/a> on May 15, 2026 in Cannes, FranceMichael Buckner\/Variety<\/p>\n

\u201cRose\u201d is a less expressive role. No temper tantrums allowed. Blending into a strict rural community required discipline and rigor. When does this woman disguised as a man pee? How does she satisfy her wife? (She acquired dildos during her decade as a soldier in the 30 Years War.) As constrained as the character is, the actress shows us what she is feeling. \u201cThis is kind of a defect,\u201d said H\u00fcller. \u201cI can\u2019t hide what I feel. Like never, which is sometimes difficult in life. Even if I wanted to. But in this case, I felt like her whole existence after she chose to live in men\u2019s clothes and to have the identity of a man to the outside, I don\u2019t even know what her inner identity is. She has to be so aware of everything around her that she\u2019s more a spectator of everything than an active subject.\u201d<\/p>\n

Survival was key. \u201cShe has to have a 360 degrees view of everything all the time,\u201d said H\u00fcller, \u201cbecause she should never come into a situation where she has to act in a rush or where she would use gestures that are not appropriate for her chosen character. So it had to be contained. She\u2019s coming from a long war. There\u2019s a lot of damage and grief and darkness inside that person. And what I love about her the most is that she\u2019s able to transform it into something soft, in a way. I loved her for not becoming this harsh, hard, cynical person.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Fatherland\"\u2018Fatherland\u2019Courtesy Mubi<\/p>\n

Next up the actress is taking on the portrayal of a man, German artist Wolfgang Herrndorf, in Maria Schrader\u2019s \u201cWork And Structure.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s different because he\u2019s not hiding anything,\u201d said H\u00fcller. \u201cHe\u2019s just Wolfgang Herrndorf. I\u2019m playing a man, but not trying to play a man. I look androgynous. I was born this way, and sometimes I can profit from it, not always, but sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

For her first studio gig, she took on powerful project director Eva Stratt in \u201cProject Hail Mary<\/a>,\u201d assigned to save the world. After H\u00fcller met Phil Lord and Chris Miller in London, she felt she could work with them. \u201cI had no idea how to play her,\u201d she said. \u201cI was thinking about somebody completely different who could inhabit this strength and responsibility and clarity. But there are moments when other people think you can do it. You start to think you can do it yourself. But I would never have thought that somebody would think of me in a character like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

While she had to make some adjustments to working on a big-budget Hollywood movie, \u201cI was surprised that there was so much freedom,\u201d she said. \u201cI would have expected it to be much more formal and more delivery oriented, but it wasn\u2019t. And it had a lot to do with the people who were working on this because Chris and Phil are playful and open directors, and they give a lot of space to explore things. And Ryan [Gosling] is somebody who loves that too. So I never felt pressed into something that I don\u2019t belong in. I was lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"At Mubi\u2019s Telluride party, Andrey Zvyagintsev, Sofia Coppola, Feed Hechinger, Andrew haigh, Sandra Huller<\/a>, and Markus Schleinzer. Omar Vega<\/p>\n

While the new idea of Stratt singing karaoke at a party threw her at first, H\u00fcller came around. It happened because Gosling heard her singing on set. She loves to sing. \u201cIt\u2019s annoying for people around me,\u201d she said. \u201cMy daughter is always rolling her eyes. At first I thought, \u2018why would she? it\u2019s not her thing. It\u2019s not her position to do that.\u2019 But then I thought, \u2018yeah, maybe that\u2019s interesting that she\u2019s leaving that position for that particular moment.’\u201d<\/p>\n

H\u00fcller searched the libraries of goodbye songs. And producer Amy Pascal suggested a few songs that she was sure she could clear. \u201cThe next night, I found [Harry Styles\u2019 song \u201cSign of the Times\u201d] and sent it to her and asked if she could she could make this possible and she did. And the next day we shot it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PROJECT\u2018Project Hail Mary\u2019\u00a9MGM\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n

The upcoming \u201cDigger\u201d (Legendary\/Warner Bros.) is another big studio project, where H\u00fcller plays the half-sister of Tom Cruise for one of her favorite directors, A.G.\u00a0I\u00f1\u00e1rritu.<\/a> \u201cHe\u2019s very energetic,\u201d she said. \u201cHe\u2019s leading this whole shooting day in a way that you want to keep up with him. It\u2019s inspiring to see him and his energy and his commitment to what he\u2019s doing, and he\u2019s sharing thoughts about everything. He\u2019s trying things. Sometimes we do things completely different on another day. So he\u2019s looking for the best thing that can happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cRose\u201dMubi<\/p>\n

She enjoyed working with the \u201cfocused\u201d Cruise, but did not hang out with him. \u201cI felt like these two chose each other, the director and the actor. They really wanted to do this together. That was great to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

The actress made the transition to directing at her Leipzig theater group last year. \u201cI\u2019m part of a theater collective of people who have known each other also for 20, 30 years,\u201d she said. \u201cBecause the reception of my appearance on stage has changed a little bit through this public eye, I didn\u2019t feel safe on stage anymore. The decision to go to the other side was a good decision because there\u2019s so much to learn, and I enjoy it. I might go back. But I took some time to adjust my expectations. I went to the theater to be part of a group, but when you\u2019re in this exhibited position, I didn\u2019t know how to deal with that, and maybe I\u2019ll be ready in the coming years to own that different position that I have. But I was a bit heartbroken that I lost it.\u201d<\/p>\n

One aspect of stardom that H\u00fcller has embraced is red carpet fashion. \u201cI have a team with Jordan Johnson Chung, who is choosing the outfits for me,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m lucky to work with Chanel and people who help me with hair and makeup. But for me, in my life, I like to get up and get out of the house without anything. It\u2019s always a bit of an adjustment to make. But when we do it, it\u2019s fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SandraSandra Huller at the premiere of \u2018Fatherland\u2019 at the 79th Festival de Cannes held at Palais des Festivals on May 14, 2026 in Cannes, France.Michael Buckner\/Variety<\/p>\n

The promo tour for \u201cDigger\u201d will pull her back in. And the award season beckons. \u201cIt\u2019s a challenge to find the balance between your personal life and decisions,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t have a team around me when I\u2019m at home. I have things to do. But I also want to help the films wherever I can. So I have to try and find the balance between. All of these things come with responsibility. It\u2019s hard for me to to step away from that, like when a studio says, \u2018But it\u2019s your responsibility to be at that press day.\u2019 No, it\u2019s not.\u201d<\/p>\n

The actress is picky about her projects and has turned many things down, she said: \u201cNot enough, some people think. I roll my eyes when I have to bring emotional value to a project that doesn\u2019t genuinely have it. So if a script isn\u2019t good, but I\u2019m asked to make it good with acting, that\u2019s something that I\u2019m not here for. I don\u2019t like that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After two Telluride Film Festival tributes, Sandra H\u00fcller left the mountains on Sunday to return to her hometown…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":887893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[3042,49,48,361,75,28908,1554,2977,18744,21344,194026],"class_list":["post-887892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-awards","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-festivals","tag-film","tag-interviews","tag-oscars","tag-project-hail-mary","tag-sandra-huller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=887892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/887893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=887892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=887892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=887892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}