On Sandra Hüller’s wall is the first piece of art she ever owned: a photograph she bought from a shop in Munich. “I won’t say its name,” she says archly, “because that would be advertising.” It’s a dynamic, joyous image showing the ensemble cast of Stravinsky’s ballet The Rite of Spring as staged by Pina Bausch, the German choreographer famous for saying, “Dance, dance, otherwise we are lost.” “I just love it,” Hüller says admiringly, turning her head for another look. “These people are all making the same movement, as you can see. But everybody is doing it completely differently. They have the same task, but you can see each personality in the way they’re doing it. I love it so much. It’s like they’re almost flying.” It explains a lot about Hüller and her craft.
The East German-born actress has been a big deal in European cinema for a while now, since her acclaimed 2006 debut, Requiem (2006) won her the Berlin film festival’s Golden Bear for her performance as a troubled young woman believed to be possessed by demons. Ten years after that, she charmed Cannes with her starring role in Maren Ade’s offbeat comedy Toni Erdmann, a critical hit that went unrewarded by the jury. This year, though, she returned to the Croisette with a vengeance, first in Palme d’Or-winner Justine Triet’s courtroom drama Anatomy of a Fall, playing a German writer on trial for the death of her French husband. In any other year, that would have been enough for any European A-lister, but at the same event she walked the red carpet for Jonathan Glazer’s Grand Prix-winning Holocaust drama The Zone of Interest, as the wife of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss. For Hüller, it seems lightning can strike twice.
DEADLINE: You left Cannes this year with two major prize-winning films to your name. Which one came first?
SANDRA HÜLLER: Actually, I started with The Zone of Interest [which was delayed because of Covid], then I did a German film called Sisi & I with Frauke Finsterwalder, and after that came Anatomy of a Fall. I think The Zone of Interest started in August ’21 and we finished Anatomy of a Fall in May ’22.
DEADLINE: Let’s start with The Zone of Interest. How did you get involved with that?
HÜLLER: The casting director, the late Simone Bär, sent me two pages of the script. It was a couple fighting about whether they should stay or leave, but I didn’t know who they were or who would direct it. It’s sometimes a big secret when directors from other countries come to Germany. We don’t get any details about them or the project, just pages. Most of the time we have to do a self-tape, which is very painful to me. I really don’t know how to do this. I’m not a digital native. So, she invited me to a casting. And then I learned what it was about, and I was even more hesitant. And I learned it was Jonathan, and then I was, of course, very interested because I adore his work and I very much respect his point of view on almost everything.
Sandra Hüller as Hedwig Höss, the wife of Nazi Rudolf Höss in The Zone of Interest.
DEADLINE: Did you need to be persuaded?
HÜLLER: It took a while, until we had the right conversations with each other, and I understood what he wanted to do with this project, that it wasn’t a biopic. I definitely wouldn’t have wanted to be part of anything like that. He wanted to experiment, by just watching these people and their dull life, and then adding this unspeakable soundtrack to [represent] the atrocities that happened behind the garden wall.
DEADLINE: You shot on location, next door to what is now the Auschwitz museum. What kind of experience was that for you as an actor?
HÜLLER: Well, as an actor, I didn’t find [the acting] very hard. Hedwig Höss doesn’t live a heavy life. For her, everything is really easy. [The hardest part] was more the personal aspect, to be in that place as a German, and to be constantly aware of the fact that you’re there as a German. And the fact that the people there welcome you in a very kind way is not something that you would expect. It is so incredibly generous of them. So, as actors, we were aware of all the responsibility that was on our shoulders, and also on Jonathan’s shoulders, as the director. But how would I deal with this subject matter and maintain a distance between the character and my own personal feelings? That was exhausting, in a way. The hardest work was in not letting my own experience affect the process of playing Hedwig Höss.
DEADLINE: Could you talk a little about Jonathan’s methods and how he directed you?
HÜLLER: Well, Jonathan’s someone who works very transparently; he gives a lot of trust to his actors, and everybody involved. Every department has permission to let the material do something to them and then transform it in their own way, to make a personal contribution. I feel that it’s really rare to have someone with such a strong vision who, at the same time, is always aware of the ideas coming from the people around him. He’s like someone from theater, establishing a space where everybody can do the best work that they’re capable of, without feeling that if they don’t, they’ll die [laughs]. There’s no pressure, it’s more of an invitation, which is very loving and very kind. That’s how I felt. He makes you grow.
DEADLINE: He’s quite famous for adapting books and scripts, then taking them in a completely different direction. What did you think when you saw the movie? Was it the movie you thought you were making?
HÜLLER: It was the movie that we knew we were making, but, of course, we didn’t know all the details, because we were not there in the editing room, and we were not there when the sound was designed by Johnnie Burn, or when the music was written by Mica Levi. We also never had access to the monitors, so we never saw any material. But, as I said, his way of working is very transparent. He walked us through everything that he wanted to do with it. There’s an unsettling sensation you have when you watch it, which was something we wanted to achieve together, and which very much happened [onscreen]. Some scenes weren’t in there anymore, but that’s normal. I didn’t sit there and think, “What’s this!?” No, not at all.
DEADLINE: Do you have a favorite Jonathan Glazer film?
HÜLLER: I don’t know, all of them. I mean, I saw Sexy Beast when it came out, which is a really long time ago. I must rewatch it. But they touch me in ways I can’t describe. I love the questions that they raise. I can sit with them for hours, days, months.
DEADLINE: When did Anatomy of a Fall come along?
HÜLLER: I think Justine sent me the script in 2020 or something. And it was the finished script. I think she had been working on it for three years straight, with [her partner] Arthur Harari. She just asked me if I wanted to be a part of it. It was a very simple decision. I said yes the next day, I think.
DEADLINE: It’s a big part. Were you ever daunted by it? In a way, you are the movie.
HÜLLER: [Crossly] Oh no, that’s not true. It’s not that I’m fishing [for compliments], it’s really not. If my partners wouldn’t have been so excellent and so challenging, I wouldn’t have been able to play this character the way I played her. Because if they hadn’t created the world that she has to survive in, if they would’ve been just slightly weaker than me, then it wouldn’t have worked. So, I’m so glad I met these people, really.
DEADLINE: What was the initial hook of the movie for you?
HÜLLER: Well, now, you read so many scripts where people speak like they are part of a novel, or like they’re not even human. And this script was so different, because I believed every word of it, the way that people were talking [laughs]. Maybe because it was written in another language, and I couldn’t be nitpicking about the German choice of words, or grammar, or whatever. But it felt so modern, unlike anything that I’d ever seen and read before. Maybe it reminded me a bit of my experience with Toni Erdmann, although, I have to say, I didn’t get that film in the beginning. It was too complicated for me, because I didn’t have any idea of the corporate world or whatever.
But with Anatomy of a Fall, I found it very challenging and very personal at the same time. I was very aware of the fact that Arthur and Justine didn’t put their own marriage in this — that would’ve been ridiculous — but it is sort of… I don’t know, what’s the English word for mutisch? Bold, daring, whatever. Yeah, it’s a bold choice to be this precise and this merciless in describing a relationship. It was something that I found very, very appealing. It drew me to it, toward it, inside of it.
What was it like to work from a script where things are always being withheld from the audience, that unravels in fragments and flashbacks? Is it confusing to have a script that is so non-linear?
HÜLLER: No. To me, that is so similar to life, in a way. No one’s life is like a linear experience. For example, some people only find out something [life-changing] about their parents when they’re 60. These kinds of flashback things happen to us every day. So, for me, it felt like the most natural way to tell a story, because, coming from theater, I don’t believe in straight narrative anyway, it’s an old-school thing. You can do it [that way], and you can definitely lose yourself in it. It’s very convenient. But I think the experience that people have when they watch this film is the same one that I had when I read the script. It matched the sort of experience that I have in my own life: some things don’t fit, there are some things I don’t know, and there are some things I can’t explain. It’s complicated, all the time. Maybe I’m doing something wrong, but this is my life experience. So, it wasn’t hard. It was the opposite. It made it easier for me to be a part of it.
In, Cannes there was the great discussion of whether the character was guilty or not. Has that pursued you?
HÜLLER: It’s part of the conversation, definitely. But also, people tell me very personal stories about their relationships, their marriages, or the breakup of their marriages. Or maybe people tell me about their households and tell me that they found it very accurate, this portrait of a multiple-language household. Some people ask me about motherhood and what I think about this particular mother that I play. Some people are judgmental, but only a few. But, as you know, people who don’t like it don’t come up to you and say, “That was sh*t!” [Laughs]. They just don’t do that. They just go home and say, “Ah, I wasted my time.” So, the conversations that I have are very positive, very personal, and actually very moving, most of the time.
DEADLINE: Is Anatomy of a Fall the biggest project you’ve done in English so far?
HÜLLER: I starred in another one. It was a Dutch film by Nanouk Leopold called Brownian Movement [2010]. That was all in English. But, yeah, I don’t think that was such a big challenge for me.
DEADLINE: Didn’t the amount of English in the film cause a problem when it came to qualifying as a contender a France’s selection for the Oscars?
HÜLLER: No. I think they were very aware of the fact that it would have to have 50 percent of each language, either for this committee or that committee. I mean, Justine and her editor, Laurent Sénéchal, put a lot of work into this balance.
DEADLINE: How did you become an actor in the first place? What inspired you?
HÜLLER: I didn’t have so many hobbies as a child. I wasn’t part of a sports team or whatever. I tried to write poems. It’s really something I would love to do, but I can’t. And then my English and German teacher opened a drama club at school, and she told me there could be something for me there. And I believed her because I trusted her, and I had a lot of fun from the first rehearsal on. I felt that it could be something for me.
And this went on and on, doing workshops, going to the Festival of Theater For Young People in Berlin — my first time in the city — and realizing that maybe I could live there. I was 17 at that time. I decided to apply for drama school, against all the advice from the grownups, the adults around me. I said, “I’m going to try, and if it doesn’t work, it’s not for me.” But it worked. And then from that moment on, it went very quickly.
DEADLINE: What inspired you about theater? What kind of productions did you enjoy?
HÜLLER: I think I can say I enjoyed all of them, because the experience of being onstage, together with a team, is something I’ve always loved, although I think my approach may have changed a little bit over the years. Now, it’s not so much about doing a great job, or at least not disappointing anyone, or making people ‘feel’ something — all these things that have more to do with “achieving” something. As soon as I met [Dutch theater director] Johan Simons, who I must have worked with, I think seven, eight, or maybe nine times now, I learned that the fact that I’m wearing a costume and speaking the lines of somebody else is something I can never hide. So, I may as well relax, and not pretend that I’m in control of anything.
He taught me that the experience of being on stage shouldn’t have anything to do with pressure. It’s a gift that you can enjoy in that moment. And also, when I watch his shows — and I’ve never had the feeling with any other productions that those from him — that the connection between the audience and the people on stage is so strong that you are definitely aware of the fact that you are sharing the same moment at the same time, together. It’s not, “Those people are up there doing something, and these people are down here watching them.” It’s a collective experience that you have. And everything that happens in the audience plays a role on stage too. People are so wide open; their awareness is so big at that moment.
DEADLINE: When did you start making movies?
HÜLLER: I think, in 2003, there was some recognition for a theater work that I did at Theater Basel. It might have been Romeo and Juliet, or The Sexual Neuroses Of Our Parents, or both, I can’t remember. But after that, agencies approached me, and there was one agent I’ve been working with for 20 years, a woman called Gabrielle Czypionka. I am very grateful that she’s in my life. She said, “We can figure it out together.” A few weeks later, there was a casting call for Requiem [2006], by Hans-Christian Schmid, and I went back, I think, three times until he decided to work with me. Because it would be my first film, and it was very risky for him. He had to be sure that I was capable of giving him what he wanted.
DEADLINE: That was a big deal for you. How do you feel about it now?
HÜLLER: I still love it. It’s very dear to me. I think it’s also very accurate, very bold, and it’s a very painful film because it kind of shows the impossibility of the situation. Everybody wants to do the right thing, and, at the same time, they do the wrong thing completely.
DEADLINE: Internationally, most people know you for Toni Erdmann (2016), which was a huge success at Cannes. Was that a surprise to you?
HÜLLER: That whole time was absolutely exciting. There were so many firsts. First-time Cannes, first-time America, first-time Oscars, first-time Globes. So, to me, it’s still like a big, big dream that I haven’t finished dreaming. I still really can’t grasp what was going on there. It confused me very much. I had a lot of fun and when I came back home, I didn’t know what to do next, because it felt so final. I didn’t know what would be the next step. I had a feeling that I might have to go away for a long time to figure out what I want to do. So, it was a very confusing, but also very beautiful time.
DEADLINE: Even now, that there is still talk about a Hollywood remake…
HÜLLER: Yeah, people over there ask me too. I have no idea what’s going on.
DEADLINE: Any plans to work with Maren Ade again. She’s been very quiet since.
HÜLLER: Oh, I plan to work with Maren all the time. I’d start tomorrow, if I could, but I don’t know what she’s up to. No idea. We are in contact, but she never talks about her projects.
DEADLINE: You’ve had two big critical hits in the last year. Are you going to take some time off?
HÜLLER: No. I signed two contracts with two Austrian filmmakers, even before Cannes, so I’m busy next year. I’ll start to shoot again in May, I think.
DEADLINE: And what can you reveal about your upcoming projects?
HÜLLER: One is with Markus Schleinzer, it’s called Rose, about a woman in the 17th century who disguises herself as a man, because it’s easier to live that way than to be a woman at that time. It’s about all the challenges you have to master to make this disguise work. And the other film is with Sandra Wollner. It’s a film about loss, about a family that loses one of their children and how they deal with it. And they do it in a very unusual way.
DEADLINE: Do you still have the same excitement that you used to have about acting?
HÜLLER: Well, it depends. Sometimes I’m really fed up and I want to quit, and I think about all sorts of jobs that I could do, and I dream of having so much money that I wouldn’t need to work to earn my rent so that I could disappear for two or three years. [Laughs] Probably you have the same thing! But then sometimes it’s really satisfying. Sometimes it feels like the best decision I ever made. It’s up and down.