Sandra Hüller Biography

Born in the city of Suhl, Germany, Sandra Hüller grew up in Friedrichroda in East Germany before the Berlin wall fell. She was in high school when the wall came down, and was then accepted to Berlin's renowned Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts. She graduated in 2003 and began acting professionally in stage productions.

Sandra enjoyed instant acclaim when she was voted Young Actress of the Year in 2003 by Germany’s Theater Heute magazine. Her film debut came just three years later in Requiem (2006), playing Michaela Klingler, a woman who undergoes a horrific exorcism. For her outstanding work in the film, Sandra received a Silver Berlin Bear for Best Actress at the 2006 Berlin International Film Festival.

She first achieved attention outside of her native country for her role in Toni Erdmann (2016), which was nominated for a Best Foreign Language Oscar, then she gained worldwide notice a few years later when she starred in two more critically acclaimed feature films — Anatomy of a Fall (2023) and The Zone of Interest (2023).

Although she'd sworn to herself that she would never play a Nazi because she didn't want to connect emotionally with a monstrous character like Hedwig, the Nazi commandant's wife, she eventually gave in after talking with the film's director, Jonathan Glazer. She told Variety: "Jonathan found a way to do it that I can't really explain – it puts it to another level. And it's a sort of spiritual thing. I can't really explain it."

Both films received Best Picture nominations at the 2024 Academy Awards, with Sandra garnering a nomination for Best Actress for her work in Anatomy of a Fall (2023). In the film, she plays the wife of a man who dies in what appears to be an accident, but later she's charged with murder in his death.

Sandra lives in Germany with her pre-teen daughter and her Weimaraner dog, who appeared as Dilla, the family pet in The Zone of Interest (2023). Sandra is fluent in German, English and French and is currently learning Spanish.

Filmography:

Anatomy of a Fall (2023)
The Zone of Interest (2023)
Sisi & I (2023)
Talking About the Weather (2022)
The Black Square (2021)
Munich: The Edge of War (2021)
I'm Your Man (2021)
Sleep (2020)
Exile (2020)
Proxima (2019)
Sibyl (2019)
25 km/h (2018)
In the Aisles (2018)
Suck Me Shakespeer (2017)
Toni Erdmann (2016)
Amour Fou (2014)
Lose My Self (2014)
Finsterworld (2013)
Strings (2012)
Above Us Only Sky (2011)
Brownian Movement (2010)
Henri 4 (2010)
Fräulein Stinnes fährt um die Welt (2009)
The Architech (2008)
A Woman in Berlin (2008)
Madonnen (2007)
Requiem (2006)