As of: January 23, 2024, 10:25 a.m
By: Michael Schleicher
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Oscars 2024: Will Sandra Hülser be nominated for best actress?
© Oliver Dietze/dpa
The 2024 Oscars will be awarded on March 10th.
Now Hollywood is announcing the nominations.
The German actress Sandra Hülser has good chances.
In Munich she was involved in the Kammerspiele for a long time.
“Why are you asking that?” or “How should I know?” Back then, she answered almost every question with a counter question.
This made the interview with Sandra Hülser in the canteen of the Munich Kammerspiele in 2007 a rather tough event.
The actress, who was born in Suhl, Thuringia in 1978, really wanted to talk about her role in “Mamma Medea”.
Counter questions can bring tension into a conversation.
But if every answer ends with a question mark, the dialogue dies before it has begun to live.
After about 20 minutes I turned off the tape.
And Hülser asked another question: “What, already?”
Ready for the Oscar?
Sandra Hülser as Hedwig Höß in “The Zone of Interest”.
© Leonie
When the Oscar nominations are announced in Hollywood this Tuesday (January 23, 2024), there's a good chance that Hülser's name will be called in the Best Actress category.
It would be a rare honor for a German: Dietrich was once nominated for an Oscar;
Luise Rainer has won it twice.
That was in 1937 and 1938 - since then: crickets chirping.
Huller could end this now.
The actress has been a guest at the Munich Kammerspiele since 2007;
From 2012 to 2015 she was a permanent member of the ensemble.
Today she works at the Schauspielhaus Bochum, where Johan Simons, the ex-Kammerspiele boss, has been artistic director since 2018.
He brought Hülser into the pot.
Sandra Hülser as Hamlet at the Schauspielhaus Bochum.
© JU Bochum
Parallel to her time in the theater in Munich, she made a name for herself in the cinema: she made her feature film debut in Hans-Christian Schmid's “Requiem”.
In the drama, which is based on a true story, she can be seen as Michaela Klinger.
The student believes she is possessed and seeks help from an exorcist.
Hülser was honored at the Berlinale in 2006 for her impressive, complex acting.
A cinematic work that has lost none of its power and urgency to this day.
Ready for the Oscar?
Sandra Hülser as best-selling author of “Anatomy of a Case”.
© Carole Bethuel
This also applies to the comedy that finally made her famous in 2016, but it would be an injustice to simply understand it as such.
In “Toni Erdmann”, Hülser was the management consultant Ines, who made it in the world of business.
Despite her success, Ines will never be able to get rid of her lower-middle-class origins, the province within her.
The character and the film derive their comedy – and their tragedy – from their determination to overcome this.
Only when Ines accepts her own “Toni Erdmann” is she truly free.
Other actresses would have made it primarily a slapstick number.
Hülser recognized the character's plight - and told about it respectfully and without vanity.
The fact that she can also do slapstick did the rest.
Perhaps this is the secret of her game: Hülser actually only takes on roles that she is curious about - be it Irma, Empress Elisabeth's lady-in-waiting in "Sisi & I" (2023), or "Confectionery Marion" in the warehouse film " In the corridors” (2018).
Be it the author who may have murdered her husband (“Anatomy of a Case”, 2023) or Hedwig, the wife of the Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höß (“The Zone of Interest”, 2023).
She could be nominated for an Oscar for her performances in the latter two films.
What all of these characters have in common is that Hülser meets them without knowing the answers.
And she can ask questions.