Sandra Hüller is entering one of the busiest and most consequential periods of her career, moving between acclaimed European cinema, major Hollywood productions and a new role behind the stage. Yet as her international profile continues to grow, the German actress is still trying to figure out how to live with the attention that comes with it.
Following two tributes at the Telluride Film Festival, Hüller returned to Leipzig, her hometown, where she is raising her 15-year-old daughter and directing a theater production. The move behind the scenes is partly a response to how dramatically her experience of performing on stage has changed since she became a global film star.
Hüller first gained international attention with the 2016 comedy “Toni Erdmann.” Her profile grew substantially after her Oscar-nominated performance in Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” in 2023, while her role in Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest” further established her as one of Europe’s most distinctive screen performers.
This year has taken that trajectory even further. Hüller has appeared in four films, ranging from intimate European productions to major Hollywood projects. She won the Berlinale Silver Bear for her performance in Markus Schleinzer’s “Rose,” while also making her studio debut as Eva Stratt in “Project Hail Mary,” the large-scale Amazon MGM production starring Ryan Gosling.
She also returned to Cannes with Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Fatherland,” playing Erika Mann, the daughter of Nobel Prize-winning German writer Thomas Mann.
A woman taking charge of the Mann family journey
In “Fatherland,” Hüller plays a version of Erika Mann that is markedly different from the conventional image of a famous writer’s daughter. Wealthy, educated and politically engaged, Erika is portrayed as the person in control during a postwar journey through Germany.
She drives the family’s Buick, serves as her father’s representative and attempts to persuade her troubled brother Klaus to return to Germany with her.
For Hüller, the character’s independence was one of the most appealing aspects of the role. Erika was a writer, journalist, actress and race-car driver, among other things, and Pawlikowski deliberately placed her at the center of the journey.
The emotional core of the film, however, lies in the complicated relationship between Erika and her father. Their correspondence revealed to Hüller a relationship defined by intense criticism, forgiveness and deep affection.
The conflict becomes particularly painful because it takes place as Thomas Mann is aging and the family is forced to confront questions about Germany, exile and responsibility.
The film also touches on the complicated moral question surrounding the Mann family’s decision to leave Germany during the Nazi period. For Hüller, the story raises a broader question about privilege: what should people do when they have the ability to escape while others remain trapped?
From wartime veteran to Hollywood scientist
“Rose” presented Hüller with a completely different challenge. The character is a woman who has survived the Thirty Years’ War and lives publicly as a man, forcing the actress to build a performance around restraint rather than outward expression.
The character’s survival depends on constantly monitoring her surroundings and avoiding gestures or reactions that could expose her identity.
Hüller described the role as an exercise in containment. Beneath the controlled exterior is a person carrying years of war, grief and trauma. Rather than turning the character into a hardened or cynical survivor, Hüller wanted to preserve the softness that remained within her.
That ability to communicate emotion without conventional dramatic expression has become one of Hüller’s defining strengths.
Her next transformation will take her even further. In Maria Schrader’s “Work And Structure,” she plays German artist Wolfgang Herrndorf, portraying a man without attempting to consciously “play a man.”
For Hüller, her androgynous appearance has sometimes helped her inhabit characters outside conventional expectations.
Finding freedom inside a Hollywood blockbuster
Her role in “Project Hail Mary” marked another major step: her first studio production.
Hüller plays Eva Stratt, a scientist tasked with helping save the world, alongside Ryan Gosling. Before accepting the role, she initially struggled to imagine herself as the character.
The experience ultimately challenged some of her assumptions about Hollywood filmmaking.
She expected a large studio production to be more rigid and focused primarily on delivering predetermined performances. Instead, she found considerable room for experimentation, something she credits to directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller and to Gosling’s own willingness to explore.
One unexpected element was Stratt singing karaoke.
Hüller initially questioned whether such a moment made sense for the character, but eventually embraced the idea after Gosling heard her singing on set. She searched for an appropriate farewell song before settling on Harry Styles’ “Sign of the Times,” which was cleared for the production and filmed almost immediately.
For Hüller, the moment demonstrated how a seemingly small departure from a character’s established position can reveal something new about them.
Another major production with Iñárritu and Cruise
Hüller’s Hollywood expansion continues with “Digger,” the upcoming Legendary and Warner Bros. production directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu. She plays the half-sister of Tom Cruise.
Working with Iñárritu offered another kind of creative environment. Hüller described the director as highly energetic, constantly testing possibilities and willing to change direction from one shooting day to another in search of the strongest result.
She also praised Cruise’s focus but said she did not socialize with him away from the production. Instead, she observed the strong creative partnership between the actor and director.
For Hüller, watching the two choose each other as collaborators was itself an interesting part of the experience.
The price of becoming a star
The rapid rise in Hüller’s profile has also changed her relationship with theater.
She belongs to a Leipzig theater collective whose members have known one another for decades. But as public attention around her increased, she began to feel less comfortable performing on stage.
Directing offered an escape from that pressure while allowing her to remain within the theater community.
Hüller said she may eventually return to acting on stage, but she needed time to adjust to the new reality of being watched differently. Losing the sense of security she once associated with theater was painful, she acknowledged, even as directing opened a new creative path.
The contrast is striking: the actress is becoming increasingly comfortable carrying major Hollywood productions, yet the familiarity of the theater stage became more difficult as her public profile expanded.
Learning to manage the machinery of fame
Some aspects of celebrity life have been easier to embrace. Hüller has increasingly participated in red-carpet fashion, working with stylists and luxury brands for premieres and festivals.
But the experience remains far removed from her ordinary life in Leipzig, where she prefers to leave the house without much preparation.
That tension is likely to intensify as “Digger” enters its promotional cycle and awards season approaches.
Hüller acknowledges that promoting films is part of the job, but she also wants to protect the boundaries of her private life. At home, she does not have a team around her and has responsibilities that exist outside the film industry.
For an actress whose career has accelerated so dramatically, finding that balance may be one of her biggest challenges.
Choosing projects on her own terms
Despite the growing scale of the projects coming her way, Hüller remains selective.
She says she has rejected numerous roles because she does not want to compensate through acting for weaknesses in a script or project. Her approach reflects a career built less on chasing visibility than on finding characters and stories that genuinely interest her.
That may be one reason her rise has been so distinctive.
Hüller has moved from European art-house cinema to major awards contenders and now to Hollywood blockbusters without abandoning the qualities that made her compelling in the first place.
As her profile grows, the challenge is no longer simply proving that she belongs among the world’s leading actors. It is learning how to remain herself while operating inside an industry increasingly eager to turn her into a star.
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