In Cannes standout 'Fatherland,’ Sandra Hüller stuns again

CANNES, France (AP) — For Sandra Hüller, eruptions of emotion don’t come naturally. She prefers to be quiet and calm, and often her screen presence radiates intensity when she’s simply watching. But when she explodes — whether in grief or karaoke — she can be magnificent.

“It’s not something that I like to do, particularly,” Hüller says, sitting in a garden in Cannes. “Maybe I like the characters more who don’t erupt all the time because these are very annoying people, I don’t know.”

She takes a drag on a cigarette and considers it further.

“I like to observe more than I like being observed. When I do something big, of course I’m the center of attention. Maybe that’s the root of it. But you are not my therapist so we will not find out today,” Hüller says, and laughs.

The full range of Hüller’s talent is on full display this year in four films that run from big to small. Foremost among them is “Fatherland,” the Cannes Film Festival entry by Paweł Pawlikowski, the Polish director of “Ida” and “Cold War.”

In the first week of Cannes, “Fatherland” (which Mubi will release later this year) was widely acknowledged as a clear standout, and a possible Palme d’Or favorite. Like “Ida” and “Cold War,” it’s elegantly shot in black and white, uncommonly brief (82 minutes) and throbs with the pain of postwar Europe.

Hüller plays Erika, the daughter of the German author Thomas Mann (Hanns Zischler). They return to Germany in 1949 on a road trip, toggling between the American-controlled West Germany and the Soviet-ruled East Germany. Their former country no more, they are betwixt, as Thomas says, “Mickey Mouse or Stalin.”

For Hüller, who was born in East Germany, “Fatherland” follows her chilling turn in Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest,” set near a concentration camp. In “Fatherland,” her character was staunchly opposed to the Nazis, but is now living amid their blithely unremorseful collaborators.

“A void is hard to portray, and I think it’s a big deal trying it,” says Hüller. “We talked about this in school. It’s part of our history classes. But I never got into the specifics of what it felt like. We know a lot of pictures of the women cleaning up the streets because the men were dead or somewhere in prison. But what it meant to not know the country you were born in anymore is something we weren’t familiar with.”

Several of Hüller’s performances have already been indelible parts of the Cannes Film Festival: the 2016 comedy “Toni Erdmann” and the 2023 Palme d’Or winner “Anatomy of a Fall.” “Fatherland” is likewise a standout, but it comes during the kind of year actors dream of.

At the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year, Hüller won best leading performance for “Rose,” a gender exploration set in the aftermath of the Thirty Years’ War. In the March box-office hit “Project Hail Mary,” she co-starred alongside Ryan Gosling and, at Gosling’s urging, performed one of the movie’s best scenes: a karaoke rendition of Harry Styles' “Sign of the Times.” She also co-stars in Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s much-anticipated “Digger,” due out later this year.

“I’m almost 50 now and I feel very blessed that I can have this experience right now,” Hüller says. “For some of my peers, it’s a gap in the journey or the end of the journey.”

If her character in “Fatherland” is torn between worlds, Hüller is moving frictionless between the movie realms of Europe and Hollywood.

“I’ve been looking at the things that came my way and I have been thinking about whether I can say yes to them or not, if I’m ready to do them,” she says. “There are some experiences coming my way that I’ve never had before and I would be very, very stupid if I wouldn’t use them.”

“Not so much for success reasons,” she continues. “It’s really more of a question of growth — and getting to know more spaces so you can move more freely through the world. There’s a lot of pleasure in this. It’s also dangerous. But it’s far out of my comfort zone.”

Still, success has come with a cost. Hüller considers herself a theater actor first, and is desperate to return to the theater collective she grew out of. She still directs with them, but her notoriety is too much to be part of an ensemble.

“I miss theater like a heartbroken person,” she says, her eyes welling up. “Even when I talk about it with you, I start crying.”

As pared away as Pawlikowski’s films are, he occasionally adds things, too. During filming, he had an idea for a scene where Erika, after quietly growing skeptical of her father’s optimism about a good Germany, shouts at him.

“I said, ‘Listen, if it’s bad, I’m not going to put it in, just do your best.’ And she did brilliant,” Pawlikowski says. “That was the luxury of an actress who can do so much. I was just watching, like, how did she do this? It’s so much better than what I imagined.”

Hüller didn't expect Pawlikowski's style to change her methods, but it did. Pawlikowski's frames leave a lot of space. She had to find how to exist in them without becoming a statue.

“It has a lot to do with presence and awareness and focus, and with a rich inner movement that’s not necessarily seen on the outside,” says Hüller. “But you can feel it, in some way. The more precise this inner movement is, the better it works in that very precise frame. That’s something I had to find out.”

Sandra Hüller poses for portrait photographs for the film 'Fatherland' during the 79th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Saturday, May 16, 2026. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)

August Diehl, Sandra Hüller, Pawel Pawlikowski, Hanns Zischler and Lukasz Zal pose for photographers upon arrival at the premiere of the film 'Fatherland' at the 79th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Thursday, May 14, 2026. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)

Sandra Hüller poses for photographers upon arrival at the premiere of the film 'Fatherland' at the 79th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Thursday, May 14, 2026. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)

Director Paweł Pawlikowski poses for portrait photographs for the film 'Fatherland' during the 79th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Saturday, May 16, 2026. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)

Sandra Hüller poses for portrait photographs for the film 'Fatherland' during the 79th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Saturday, May 16, 2026. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul pleaded with unions representing workers for the Long Island Rail Road, North America’s largest commuter rail system, to resume bargaining Sunday, saying a long strike hurts workers and hundreds of thousands of commuters.

“This is my official invitation. We didn’t want you to leave. You left. You’re welcome to come back. I’ll provide refreshments, whatever you like. Just c’mon back,” Hochul told a news conference as the strike — the first in three decades — entered its second day.

Hochul, appearing with the chief executive of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that runs the railroad more commonly known by commuters as the “LIRR,” pleaded with the unions to try to reach a deal before Monday's morning commute.

“We all know that the railroad is the lifeblood of Long Island. Without it, life as we know it is simply not possible. The bottom line is, no one wins in a strike. Everyone is hurt,” she said.

The LIRR serves hundreds of thousands of commuters who live along a 118-mile-long and up to 23-mile-wide land mass that includes Brooklyn and Queens in New York City and the Hamptons, a summertime playground for the rich and famous near its eastern tip. The railroad has long provided commuters relief from its rush-hour clogged highways.

Most of its riders live outside New York City in two counties populated by nearly three million people.

After the news conference, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and the Transportation Communications Union said in a statement that the union workers “are not asking for special treatment — they are simply fighting to keep up with the skyrocketing cost of living in the New York region after years without a raise.”

The railroad closed down and workers went on strike just after midnight Friday after five unions representing about half its workforce walked off the job.

The unions and the MTA have been negotiating for months on a new contract, with talks stalled over the question of workers' salaries and healthcare premiums. President Donald Trump’s administration tried to broker a deal, but the unions were legally allowed to strike starting at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.

At her news conference, Hochul said workers would lose every dollar that they would gain with a new contract by remaining on strike for three days.

Kevin Sexton, national vice president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, has said no new negotiations have been scheduled.

“We’re far apart at this point,” Sexton said Saturday. “We are truly sorry that we are in this situation.”

At Hochul's news conference, MTA Chairman Janno Lieber said the unions' proposals would “blow up the MTA’s budget” but he joined the governor's request for the unions to resume talks.

“They elected to walk out. We’re more than willing to meet them halfway on wages,” he said.

The impact of the walkout, the first for the LIRR since a two-day strike in 1994, fell on many sports fans who wanted to see the Yankees and Mets battle or the Knicks’ playoff run at Madison Square Garden, which is located directly above the railroad’s Penn Station hub in Manhattan.

Would-be commuters were greeted all weekend by train schedule departure boards that listed ghost trains marked “No Passengers” rather than upcoming trains listed by destination.

Hochul said essential workers among the roughly 250,000 weekday LIRR riders can take buses into the city from six locations on Long Island starting at 4 a.m. Monday and during an evening rush-hour commute from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Hochul, a Democrat, blamed the Trump administration for cutting mediation short and pushing the negotiations toward a strike. Trump, a Republican, responded on his Truth Social platform Saturday, saying he had nothing to do with the strike and “never even heard about it until this morning.”

“No, Kathy, it’s your fault, and now looking over the facts, you should not have allowed this to happen,” Trump said.

Hochul urged companies and agencies that employ workers from Long Island to let them work from home whenever possible.

“It’s impossible to fully replace LIRR service. So effective Monday, I’m asking that regular commuters who can work from home, should. Please do so,” she said.

The MTA has said the unions’ initial demands to raise salaries would result in large fare increases and be disproportionate to what other unionized workers are paid.

The unions, which represent locomotive engineers, machinists, signalmen and other train workers, have said more substantial raises were warranted to help workers keep up with inflation and rising living costs.

Long Island Rail Road workers walk on the picket line outside of Penn Station on the first day of their strike, Saturday, May 16, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)

Long Island Rail Road trains sit at the West Side Yard on the first day of a Long Island Rail Road workers' strike, Saturday, May 16, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)

A passenger waits by a sign board showing no Long Island Rail Road trains operating at the Moynihan Train Hall section of Penn Station on the first day of a strike on Saturday, May 16, 2026 in New York. (AP Photo/Michael R. Sisak)

Long Island Rail Road workers, including locomotive engineer Karl Bischoff, center, picket outside Penn Station on the first day of a strike in New York, on Saturday, May 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael R. Sisak)

A passenger looks at a closed off entrance to the Long Island Rail Road at Grand Central station, Saturday, May 16, 2026, in New York, on the first day of a strike after five unions representing about half the LIRR's workforce walked off the job. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)