Sandra Hüller on her massive 2026 film slate and

Sandra Hüller is currently navigating a period of unprecedented professional momentum. With four high-profile films released in 2026—and potential involvement in a fifth—the 48-year-old actor finds herself at the center of international cinema. While her recent work includes a massive $684 million hit in Project Hail Mary, her latest project, Fatherland, serves as a poignant return to historical drama. The subject is doubly unavoidable in light of Fatherland. The latter saw her Oscar-nominated. The air of ultra-competence was very Sandra Hüller for Beginners.

Directed by Paweł Pawlikowski, Fatherland explores the life of Erika Mann, a German polymath who accompanies her father, the novelist Thomas Mann, through the landscape of a newly divided postwar Germany.

The film, shot in black and white, forces a confrontation with the country’s Nazi history. During a conversation about the project, Hüller became visibly emotional, noting that the film captures a specific, painful grief from the East. She expressed deep gratitude for Pawlikowski’s willingness to explore socialist ideals that did not survive in modern Germany but remain relevant for contemporary political discourse. Where Hüller grew up. (She still lives in what was once the GDR.) I tell her I’ve never before seen a film that acknowledged the utopian dreams of that place and time, however damaged they became, the Nazi past shadows everything – but the movie is also tied up with the birth of East Germany. And she cries, and then her voice cracks. But is one maybe people can still think about, we reflexively apologise to each other. “I’m just grateful Pawel gave space to this political idea that didn’t survive in Germany. And yet she has always been open about the nuance to the East Germany she remembers from childhood – a place defined by more than the Stasi men of cold war thrillers. “What fascinates me is that in East and West were two systems that for a certain time could have learned from each other. She apologises again; I’m not sure why. “It is this situation we live in now. The Manns originally fled the country in 1933 and they would end up in the US. “It’s no secret there are similarities now,” Hüller says. “Fascism doesn’t arrive overnight. In little doses, it gets here slowly. She gives an impish tilt of the head. Then, she karaoked Whitney Houston’s Greatest Love of All.

Hüller remains politically active outside of her film career. Based in Leipzig, she is a co-founder of the experimental theatre group Farn Kollektiv and is a single mother to a teenage daughter. She is acutely aware of the current political climate, noting that the rise of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party—which notably secured 43.8% of the vote in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt where parts of Fatherland were filmed—echoes the conditions that forced the Mann family to flee Germany in 1933. She argues that the primary question for society is how to respond to such shifts. The film even harked back to her 2016 breakthrough in skewed German comedy Toni Erdmann.

The actor’s 2026 slate is notably eclectic. Beyond the arthouse sensibilities of Fatherland and the stark 17th-century fable Rose—in which she plays a woman passing as a male war veteran—she has leaned into Hollywood projects. Her role as the mission controller Eva Stratt in Project Hail Mary proved a successful turn, though Hüller mused that the character’s authoritative nature made some audience members uncomfortable. She found the experience of working with directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller refreshing, noting that they created a set environment where the cast felt encouraged to have fun. She can convey every human emotion there is, a wildly gifted actor. In 2024, she astonished twice over as the wife of the commandant of Auschwitz in The Zone of Interest and a woman suspected of murdering her husband in Anatomy of a Fall. What is good, she says, is that, with her as the common thread, Hollywood marketing budgets end up spotlighting the likes of Fatherland too. “On the other hand, I struggle with seeing myself as someone special. That is actually the highest praise I can give myself.”. She proved the perfect foil for Ryan Gosling’s reluctant spaceman as stone-faced mission controller Eva Stratt, in a deft piece of Hollywood feelgood.

Despite the scale of her recent work, Hüller maintains a grounded perspective. She operates without a personal assistant and finds the Hollywood studio machinery somewhat strange. When asked about rumors regarding her participation in the Marvel film Avengers: Doomsday, she remains cautious but curious, noting that she heard the production maintains a non-hierarchical, egalitarian environment, which she hopes is true in practice. And it feels very strange, s andra Hüller is crying. They have a reputation for an oddly egalitarian vibe on set, whatever else Marvel movies represent.

Her professional path has not been without controversy or critical debate. The film Digger, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu and featuring Tom Cruise, faced poor reviews and a difficult box office reception. Hüller defended the project as a time capsule, describing it as a document of a specific era, though she acknowledged that the limited screen time for her character—the sister of Cruise’s oil tycoon—was a frustration.

Her recent experience at a royal gala premiere in London highlighted the surreal nature of her current fame. While the cameras focused on her alongside Prince William and Catherine, Princess of Wales, Hüller admitted her main thoughts were on her aching feet and the captive audience waiting for the film to begin. She jokingly confessed to feeling like a fan, noting she had never met royalty previously.

Reflecting on her rapid ascent, Hüller emphasizes that her current schedule is the result of multiple projects filmed at different times finally reaching theaters simultaneously. She does not exercise control over this timing, yet she appreciates how these releases keep her working across various genres. Her approach remains pragmatic; she describes the US as a workplace but intends to keep her home life simple and separate. Even doing karaoke, Hüller is in control. Finally, she laughs. “You’re going to say I cried, aren’t you.

When pushed on her status as a star, Hüller remains self-deprecating. She famously joked about her driving safety record, suggesting that having a clean license is a more noteworthy headline than her celebrity. Ultimately, she views her work as a way to unite audiences through storytelling, aiming to provide entertainment that avoids the standard reliance on weapons or violence. For now, she continues to balance her experimental theatre roots with the demands of an international blockbuster career. Which would show having a lot of money available doesn’t have to mean abusing your power.