Sandra Hüller Makes Surprise Move to Supporting for ‘Fatherland,’ Setting Up Possible Double Oscar Nom With ‘Rose’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Hüller is heading to the supporting actress race for “Fatherland,” Variety has confirmed exclusively. Mubi, which is handling the U.S. release of Paweł Pawlikowski’s black-and-white postwar drama, will campaign both Hüller and co-star Hanns Zischler in the supporting categories at the Oscars and across the awards circuit. The pair play Erika and Thomas Mann, the daughter and the Nobel Prize-winning author at the center of the film.

The decision comes as a surprise. “Fatherland” is a two-hander built almost entirely on the fractious, tender exchanges between father and daughter as they travel from American-occupied Frankfurt to Soviet-controlled Weimar in the summer of 1949. Hüller, who anchors the film’s emotional arc, had been widely expected to compete in lead. Instead, the campaign positions the film as an ensemble piece in which neither actor claims the top billing.

The move follows Hüller’s nomination for outstanding supporting performance at the Gotham Awards, which was an early signal that the strategy was changing. Still, Gotham placement is not always a predictor of where a studio ultimately lands with Academy voters and many in the awards community had assumed the Oscar push would go lead.

The placement is not only limited to the Academy. Hüller has been submitted in supporting across every guild and awards ceremony this season, including the Golden Globes and the Actor Awards, formerly known as the SAG Awards.

Supporting actress is historically one of the Academy’s most fluid categories, and the placement gives Hüller a clearer runway than a lead field that is shaping up to be one of the most crowded in years. It also keeps her out of direct competition with her own work, effectively clearing the lane in lead actress for “Rose,” which Mubi is also distributing and which now stands as her sole lead contender this season. “Rose” is Austria’s official entry in the Academy Awards’ international feature category.

Hüller is having the kind of year few actors can achieve. She will be campaigned in lead actress for the drama “Rose” and will mount additional supporting actress bids for Amazon MGM Studios’ “Project Hail Mary,” the box office sensation and critically acclaimed sci-fi adaptation and Warner Bros.’ “Digger,” which stumbled commercially. Marvel also just announced she has an undisclosed role in “Avengers: Doomsday,” which opens in December, placing the German actress squarely inside the biggest franchise in Hollywood.

In lead, “Rose” pits her against presumptive front-runner Julianne Moore for “The Debut,” along with Olivia Wilde for “The Invite,” breakout Inde Navarrette for “Obsession,” Virginie Efira for “All of a Sudden” and Carrie Coon for “The Liberation.” In supporting, her three bids collide with Anne Hathaway and Samantha Morton from Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” Penélope Cruz, who is in play for both “The Invite” and “La Bola Negra,” Kate O’Flynn for “Tender Loving Care” and Amanda Seyfried for “You Can See Everything.”

One of the most notable rule changes for the 99th Oscars allows an actor to earn multiple nominations in the same category, provided each performance ranks among the top five vote-getters. Previously, only the highest finisher advanced. The move aligns the acting races with the rest of the categories on the ballot.

For Hüller, the supporting slot for “Fatherland” could prove to be her most attainable or it could make her a candidate for double acting nominations this year in both lead and supporting. She would become only the 13th performer in Oscar history to earn two acting nominations in the same year, joining a club that includes Cate Blanchett, Jamie Foxx and Scarlett Johansson, the last to do so, for “Marriage Story” and “Jojo Rabbit” (2019). Of the 12 who have pulled it off, seven went on to win one of the two categories.

The film premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, where Pawlikowski won the best director prize and Poland has selected it as its submission for best international feature at the 99th Academy Awards.

Critics have singled out Hüller’s work as Erika, the writer, actress and anti-Nazi campaigner who reluctantly agrees to accompany her father back to the country she swore she would never set foot in again.

Hüller was nominated for best actress for “Anatomy of a Fall” in 2024, the same year “The Zone of Interest” won best international feature.

Zischler, the veteran of New German Cinema best known for his collaborations with Wim Wenders, has never been nominated for an Academy Award. A supporting actor campaign for his austere, quietly devastating turn as Mann places him in a category that has often rewarded distinguished international actors late in their careers.

Pawlikowski co-wrote “Fatherland” with Hendrik Handloegten. The film also stars August Diehl as Klaus Mann, along with Devid Striesow and Anna Madeley. Łukasz Żal, Pawlikowski’s Oscar-nominated cinematographer on “Ida” and “Cold War,” shot the picture, which the director has described as the final chapter of his historical trilogy.