Anatomy of a Fall and Zone of Interest star Sandra Hüller, our Heat Index, and more in EW's The Awardist

Sandra Hüller takes the spotlight with two commanding — and vastly different — performances

Interview by Gerrad Hall
Illustration by Michael Hoeweler

If you don't already know who Sandra Hüller is, you will soon enough.

The German actress is making a splash this year with not one but two buzzy titles, both of which played at the recent Telluride and Toronto film festivals but entered the awards conversation in May, at the Cannes Film Festival: Anatomy of a Fall, which won the fest's top prize, the Palme d'Or; and The Zone of Interest, which won the second-place prize, the Grand Prix.

"We had a great time, everybody," Hüller tells The Awardist of her successful trip to the French Riviera. "It was a bit sometimes not so easy to connect to both teams, but we managed and so everybody was happy."

There's a lot to celebrate — both films have received critical acclaim. In Zone of Interest (Dec. 8), by director Jonathan Glazer and loosely based on Martin Amis' 2014 novel of the same name, Hüller's Hedwig and her husband Rudolf Höss, an Auschwitz commander (Christian Friedel), live right outside the walls of the Nazi concentration camp. Just feet away, you can hear gunshots and screams and can see smoke rising from the chimneys of the crematorium — but the Höss family is living their dream life in a nice home with a pool and garden, which she regularly tends. Her idyllic life is financed, in essence, by her husband's job killing thousands upon thousands of Jews — she doesn't even bat an eye when he brings home bags of clothes, even a fur coat, once worn by those who've just been gassed.

But up first is Anatomy (Oct. 13). In that film from co-writer and director Justine Triet, Hüller plays a successful author accused of killing her husband, whose own writing career hasn't been as fruitful. Was his death a heat-of-the-moment incident? It's also possible he fell out of an open window...or that he took his own life. Therein lies the drama, which plays out in extensive detail during her trial where her own young son, who found his father's lifeless body, takes the stand.

"I consider myself very lucky that I had the opportunity to work with both directors and to portray such definitely different women," Huller says, adding that she felt equally fulfilled by both characters, but for different reasons. "[With] Sandra and Anatomy of a Fall, I feel very much closer to her. The work on Zone of Interest, on one level it was more of a technical one.... It was also a lot about community and a lot about being in this place in Poland, being in Auschwitz and close to the memorial of Auschwitz and to just be present in this place."

Her role in Anatomy was written just for her by Triet and Arthur Harari (both also wrote 2019's Sybil, which Triet directed and in which Hüller had a supporting role); on any other project, she might've felt extra pressure to deliver for a writer who gave her such a gift, but that wasn't the case here.

"I knew that [Triet] was very sure that I was capable of doing this work. Sometimes when somebody writes for you, it can go wrong because the characters are too close [to you and] it's not really a challenge in the first place. And also, sometimes people assume things [about you] that are just not right and you have to deal with projections," Hüller explains. "In this case, I think she didn't write it for me as a person but as an actor, and I don't think she thinks that this person is close to me. I think it's more my way of approaching work that she felt was maybe right."

Below, check out an exclusive clip from Anatomy of a Fall, and read excerpts from Hüller's conversation with the Awardist about the tense thriller and examination of the couple's fraught relationship, including one especially heated argument.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: At the center of this film is a death — Sandra's husband dies. We are questioning throughout: Did he take his own life? Did she kill him? Was it an accident? But in the bigger picture of things, it is this really wonderful examination of relationships and perceptions and judgment and truth, both our own truth and the actual reality of situations and experiences. Through all of that, the audience is really left questioning what everyone, especially Sandra, says. So I'm curious what questions you recall having about Sandra and the script after you read it the first time?

SANDRA HÜLLER: What I really enjoyed was the fact that I was moved from one side to the other all the time. If I thought that she was innocent — whatever that means — also if I believed her or not, and I constantly had to question my own projections on her. The script constantly mirrored back my own opinion about certain behavior or certain narratives or things that she said, and I found the way that Justine is playing with those projections really masterful.

One of the beautiful things about your performance, I think, is that we never know what Sandra is really thinking. And that's a real feat because sometimes when you watch performances, you can see the actor thinking about movements, thinking about what comes next, and it can take the audience out of the story. But in those regards, about never leaning too hard one way or the other into what actually happened, how did that complicate your job?

Well, I wouldn't say it complicated it. It was hard work, obviously, but it made the joy of working bigger because there was more space to explore. I started working as an actor in theater, so I'm used to rehearsals — to make mistakes, to find the wrong path, and realizing that two days later and then you start from another angle. So this kind of working fits really close to me and I enjoy it very much. So it didn't make it complicated in that sense. I love the focus, the concentration that comes with this sort of working because you have to be present all the time and you can't hide at any moment because the responsibility for character is so high that I think I enjoyed it more.

A really fascinating moment during the trial is when we hear audio of an argument recorded by Sandra's husband Samuel, and then we see it play out. It is perhaps the most intense moment of the movie. Was there a different feeling on set that day — or days? When you got to that scene, was it a different mood?

Yes, of course, because the tension in this scene is really high from the beginning, and the circumstances are a bit weird because Sandra doesn't know that her husband is recording the fight, and she also doesn't know that he might stage the fight to collect material for [his own] writing. So it comes out of the blue. I think for a long time she really tries not to get into it and not to fight with him because there is no reason, the things that they fight about. And we all know that when you're in a relationship for a long time, the fights somehow spiral. It's always the same topics, and I think it's the same with them. So in the first place, she probably thinks that it's the usual thing that's going on, and we can probably fix it in a minute or two or maybe 10, but this time something is different and she decides otherwise and gets into the fight really late. But she does.

We had two days to film that scene because it ends really violent, and we didn't want to do that on the first day because I figured that it would be hard to go back to the beginning where it's pretty relaxed from her side. And it was like that, so I was right. So we filmed the first part until the big, let's call it explosion, on the first day and the other parts on the second day. But this one was rehearsed. We really had to find the staging in the house and the positions of the characters. But everything else, I really have to say, the scene is so superbly written that you could just ride through it. It was really beautiful.

I do have to talk about the ending of the movie... What I'll say is: There is a verdict in the trial, but a verdict doesn't always mean that we have the answers. So I ask this question, not necessarily because I want the answer, but I feel like the answer may have been important for you to know in terms of how you played certain scenes: Do you know what really happened that day at the chalet?

No, I don't. I asked Justine several times and she didn't answer the question for reasons. And as soon as we started working, I also realized that it's not really important. It's really important what we think about the story. It's important what every spectator, every viewer thinks about the characters. It has so much to do with our own perception of a couple of successful people, of adult people, of relationships, of mothers and children and fathers and children. All the things we project are important. And she really built something around the truth that we cannot really get through. So I heard lots of opinions about the truth that really happened that day, and it's always really interesting what people have in mind.

Listen to the full Awardist podcast interview with Hüller below.

Get the latest awards season analysis and hear from the actors, creators, and more who are contenders this season on EW's The Awardist podcast, hosted by Gerrad Hall. Be sure to listen/subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, or via your own voice-controlled smart speaker (Alexa, Google Home).

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Heat Index | Contender or Pretender?

The fall festival circuit — Venice, Telluride, and Toronto — looked a lot different than normal due to the dual writers' and actors' strikes, but that doesn't mean some strong contenders didn't emerge from what it traditionally considered the kickoff to the Oscars race. Here's a look at who's up and who's down as the season gets underway. By Joey Nolfi

Who's up:

• PICTURE, DIRECTOR, ACTRESS: Poor Things — The latest offering from Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster, The Favourite) is a twisted tale of a dead Victorian woman (Emma Stone) who embarks on a journey of personal liberation after she's revived by a mad scientist. It earned universal raves out of Venice and Telluride, placing it on an ideal pedestal as the must-see title of the first round of fall festivals.

Who's down:

• ACTRESS: Margot Robbie, Barbie — Before you freak out and banish us to Weird Barbie's basement that smells like soup, hear us out. Robbie is still very much a contender in the race, and we fully expect her to land among the Academy's eventual nominees for Best Actress, but, at this moment, the buzz around summer blockbusters (like Barbie and Oppenheimer) tends to cool as the festivals usher in shiny new contenders. Robbie's campaign has yet to reach its peak, so look out for her to soar in the weeks ahead.

Read Joey's full analysis here of those movies and performances, as well as TIFF's People's Choice Award winner American Fiction and Priscilla star Cailee Spaeny, Venice's best actress winner.

Oughta Get a Nod: Chris Messina for Air

Chris Messina has been quietly laboring as a Hollywood secret weapon for years now, able to turn in grumpy-yet-charming leading man (The Mindy Project) and gleaming menace (Birds of Prey) with equal measure. But as foul-mouthed sports agent David Falk in Ben Affleck's Air, he throws his nice-guy persona out the window to deliver a performance that steals the movie with only a few scenes. His ability to swing from smooth-tongued manipulator to rage monster in a single phone call is employed for maximum comedic effect — and it's even more impressive when you consider that the vast majority of his scenes are solo efforts. While much of Air has a steady approach, Messina injects colorful bursts of volatility, using profanity as his paintbrush. Real ones know that Messina is the actual best "Hollywood Chris" and wouldn't it be nice to affirm that with an Oscar? —Maureen Lee Lenker

Oscars Flashback

The Snub That Still Hurts: Mike Faist for West Side Story

When a particular story recurs in different forms over the years, award bodies have a strange tendency to reward the same roles each time. So Rita Moreno won an Oscar for playing Anita in 1961's West Side Story, and Ariana DeBose also won an Oscar for playing Anita 50 years later. A well-deserved win, no doubt. But there's someone else who should've gotten a lot more attention, one of the brightest spots of Steven Spielberg's version of the musical: Mike Faist's turn as Jets leader Riff. As the face of a violent white supremacist gang, Riff is not an inherently sympathetic character, but Faist imbues him with the desperation of a wounded puppy and the stubbornness of a loyal friend. Plus, he absolutely nails those pirouettes! It's a moving, skillful performance that will continue to pop with every viewing of Spielberg's most beautiful movie in years. —Christian Holub

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