Sandra Hüller - Hollywood Authentic

October 2, 2026

Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS
Words by JANE CROWTHER

Ahead of the Royal Film Performance™ and World Premiere of Digger, Greg Williams catches a moment of calm with Tom Cruise.

Standing on the seventh-floor roof terrace of the Chancery Rosewood Hotel in Mayfair on a bright Tuesday afternoon in September, Tom Cruise surveys London from the top of the building that was once the American Embassy in the city. Above him, in full flight, sits a huge metal 35ft-wide American Golden Eagle made from WW2 B-52 bombers by Theodore Roszak. It’s a fitting spot for the actor/producer to contemplate the worldwide premiere of his latest film, Digger, which will bow in Leicester Square to an audience including the Prince and Princess of Wales in a few hours time.

In the movie, Cruise plays a jingoistic Texan oil tycoon with White House sway and the view that he is above accountability when his Alaskan drilling causes a global environmental disaster. Directed and co-written by Alejandro G. Iñárritu (his first English-language film since The Revenant), it’s a role in which Cruise dons ageing make-up, a paunch and cowboy boots, chewing his uncomfortable words with a syrupy Texan accent. It’s a world away from the tux he’s wearing as Greg Williams shoots him in the hotel’s Eagle Bar before he begins hours of meeting fans, media and royals on the red carpet.

‘With Digger, I have to say, I’ve never had a guy that challenged me in this way,’ he admits of the role. ‘I had to draw on all of my experience, all of my learnings from all of the years and every film I’ve made to be able to play this character and match the ambition of this movie. That’s because even while I’m drawing on the tools I’ve learned over time, this is not a one-size-fits-all job.’ To avoid spoilers it’s impossible to detail just how Cruise’s decades of acting informs his performance, but suffice to say it involves duality, a meta element and walking a tight-rope of tone in a gonzo satire that requires him to use physical comedy and oratory bombast. ‘Finding the right tone is finding that line,’ he says of the balancing act. ‘It’s so precise. You have got to buy into the character, you have got to buy into the world.’

Part of that process, he says, was leaning into the clothes and make-up of Digger (designed by master prosthetist, Kazu Hiro), a man who wears silk pyjamas and Stetson, beige sports shirts and Texan cowboy suits with giant belt buckles nestling under his well-fed gut. ‘The colors and the wardrobe and the makeup… and Alejandro showed me his inspiration wall for Digger. From there, I’m playing, discovering the rhythm, and suddenly I can just be the character.’ He’s nodding to the character today by wearing black cowboy boots with his classic Armani tux and Jaques Marie Mage sunglasses.

The character is one of the most unpleasant he has played in his career and one who operates within a recognisable world stage – and his performance is likely to put him into the awards conversation. And, he hopes, makes audiences question and discuss what they’ve seen. ‘It’s definitely the oldest story ever told about humanity. What Alejandro has done is put a spotlight on our humanity in such a humorous and entertaining way, and I want people to bring to the story who they are, and to discover it for themselves and have conversations. The same themes play out in the schoolyard. You don’t have to be rich to wield power or to be a bully, there is a power play going on and it’s everywhere in every level of humanity. No one is immune, and history is written by the victors. Things happen fast, but human nature hasn’t changed.’

As a self-confessed movie fan, Cruise relishes the idea of seeing a big, bold film that challenges expectations and creates a debate when the lights go up. ‘I love sitting in that theatre opening weekend, I like being there with an audience so I can experience it with them. That’s something I’ve done since I was a kid. We traveled all over and whenever I would watch a movie with an audience, I was so curious – are they feeling the same way I do, are they enjoying this as much as I am? Maybe, maybe not, but that’s the beauty of cinema. Everyone likes what they like, what works for me may not work for you, but we’re there, together, and that’s what unites us. Your taste may not be mine, but what I want is for people to be immersed in the experience, to go along on this journey that’s projected up on that screen, whatever it takes to tell that story. And it takes all of us, together.’

Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS
Words by JANE CROWTHER
Digger is in cinemas now
Thanks to the Eagle Bar Upper East at The Chancery Rosewood

Screening Room

DIGGER

September 29, 2026

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Of course we all adore Tom Cruise running and saving the day. But we also love it when he takes a gamble on a performance, when he doesn’t ask an audience to root for the character he’s carefully crafted, when vanity is thrown out the window. While we warm to Maverick and Ethan Hunt, we also relish the bitter repellence of Frank TJ MacKey and the corpulent twerking and pottymouth of Les Grossman. Digger Rockwell is Cruise unapologetically swinging for the fences, his movie star charisma buried under ageing, swelling prosthetics, and his character knowingly repulsive.

Tom Cruise, Sandra Hüller, Riz Ahmed, John Goodman — Seoju Park/Warner Bros. Pictures

On that level alone, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s bleak satire prodding at big business, environmentalism and the human need for stories (both in the news cycle and to process trauma) is an intrigue. Do you want to see Cruise with cowboy boots, paunch and an accent as thick as oil getting peed on by his animatronic incontinent cat? Yeah, you probably do. Writer-director Alejandro G. Iñárritu has called for care when reviewing his film in order for surprises to be preserved, but any viewer who has seen Birdman or Bardo should feel a sense of deja vu.

Themes and sensibilities from both are present in a broad satire that introduces us to Digger as he awakes in his palatial, willfully artificial and OTT mansion, his 30 year-old cat, Maggie, in his bed. A tycoon who built his business on the ethos of his grand-daddy and his humble shovel (which hangs with other trophies in his home), Digger has an infuriated sister (Sandra Hüller, wasted) and a big problem with his Alaskan operation. A piece of the ice shelf the size of Washington DC has broken off and is heading towards Europe, a cataclysmic situation that requires accountability, atonement and action. Digger and the US president (John Goodman) conspire to do the opposite…

With mentions of getting ahead of the narrative and the value of truth, plus Digger giving a baldly truthful speech about consumer complicity to a room of oatmeal men, Iñárritu strives to be both deep and relevant. But with a one-note tone that only operates at eleven (though MVP Riz Ahmed modulates for nuance), an unsatisfactory mid-film rug-pull which undermines any sharpness, and a preponderance for the grotesque, Digger feels like it does a lot of shouting without saying much at all.

Thank goodness then for Cruise – committing to the bit with the sort of dedication we expect of him, going gonzo in a manner that entertains even when the material does not. And production design, while bilious, is detailed and accomplished – worth looking at if Goodman’s bellowing is losing its charm. It’s a technically impressive film, with an all-star cast around the nucleus of Cruise and ambition for days. But it’s also messy, ugly and unfocused. And while it should buoy Cruise into the awards conversation, it will likely be him alone on the campaign trail.

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Images courtesy of WARNER BROS. PICTURES
Digger is in cinemas now

Screening Room

FATHERLAND

May 15, 2026

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Paweł Pawlikowski’s latest film is beautifully calibrated and poignant – and proof that running times do not need to be bombastic to tell a profound story. In just 82 minutes, Fatherland explores big themes of art and legacy while also teasing out conversation points of parental overshadowing, national identity and the small things that break a dam of contained grief. Sumptuous monochrome and academy ratio, it’s a period piece with plenty to say about the 21st century, and a cinematic treat that demands big screen viewing – with the drama of screen curtains closing to accommodate its pleasingly old-school format.

Sandra Hüller, Hanns Zischler, August Diehl — Mubi

It opens with a phone call between siblings; depressed Klaus (August Diehl) and pragmatic Erika (Sandra Hüller), the adult children of celebrated German writer and egghead, Thomas Mann. Erika wants Klaus to attend a trip their father is about to embark on, Klaus is unsure. The rest of the film tracks the trip in question as Mann (Hanns Zischler) returns to his homeland in 1949 to receive two awards for his work, after fleeing the nation for America during WWII. Erika is his helpmeet; driver, translator, secretary, publicist, stylist. As the duo travel between destroyed Frankfurt and the Weimar communist sector, family tragedy reshapes their experience and their relationship.

Though this ostensibly is a story of a male genius (Mann is a Nobel prizewinner and intellectual), the real focus is Erika, a formidably accomplished woman whose calm calculation snaps during a sharp conversation with a Nazi actor during a party and when drunk former soldiers carouse outside her window. Though she is fluent in multiple languages, a writer and a former actor, her most powerful act comes in gently taking the hand of an old man struggling to process his feelings or forgive himself for narcissism. Though the whole cast is excellent, Hüller is exemplary. The way she holds a cigarette informs an audience, just as the micro twist of her mouth betrays the feelings she doesn’t give voice to. And the recreation of a destroyed post-war Germany is like dreamlike time-travel. Every shot is gorgeous, but a couple of sequences of the Manns driving through bombed, shattered streets and along East German lanes feel like historical gems liberated from long lost archives.

While Mann talks loftily of art and what society should look like, the parallels between a fledgling East German tightening control via autocracy and a Trump-era America are easily found. Recognisable too are the concepts of being on the right side of history and the way that art can illuminate and soothe. Whether a Bach fan or not, the moment one of his pieces plays in a devastated building, is a haunting, healing moment of hope. It transports, just as Pawlikowski’s movie does.

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Images courtesy of MUBI
Fatherland premiered at the 79th Cannes Film Festival

Screening Room

PROJECT HAIL MARY

March 19, 2026

Words by JANE CROWTHER

In our current world of political polarisation, rage baiting, click farming and war, Project Hail Mary – with its belief in cooperation, kindness, self-sacrifice, friendship, and the healing nature of karaoke – is the film we need now. An old-fashioned, four-quadrant, feelgood MOVIE, built for the big screen and for a communal experience, it might not solve world problems but it will certainly provide welcome respite from them.

James Ortiz, Lionel Boyce, Ryan Gosling, Sandra Hüller — Ilze Kitshoff/StudioCanal

Like Andy Weir’s previous bestseller adaptation, The Martian, PHM put audiences in an interstellar situation with a lone everyman, trying to figure out how to survive in a hostile environment. This time around it’s Cleveland science teacher and purveyor of great cardies and retro t-shirts, Dr Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) who wakes from a medical coma on a US spaceship 113.9 years from Earth, his colleagues dead and his mission unclear. As the brain fog clears, Grace recalls the threat to Earth that brought him into a galaxy far, far away. Space bugs called astrophage have systematically gone through planets, sucking their lifeforce and our spinning rock is next. Deep in space there’s a single planet, Tau Ceti, that seems immune, so a team is sent on a one-way ticket to find the cure and send it back home.

Clearly other civilisations have had the same idea, because as Grace nears the planet in question he meets a version of himself, a stone-looking alien he calls ‘Rocky’. Refreshingly, their relationship begins with mutual respect and curiosity, and as the duo develop ways of communication, work together in their make-shift lab and explain the joys of each other’s worlds they form a bromance of the ages. In-between Gosling’s deft physical comedy, the rock/man banter and Neil Scanlon’s tangible puppet design, something emerges that recalls ET and Wall-E: the simple beauty of friendship that crosses species, space and time – between two beings that value each other for their heart, not their provenance.

Largely powered by Gosling’s considerable charm (with a side helping of Sandra Hüller as the sort of calm, pragmatic commander we might all wish was in control of the world, especially when she starts belting out Harry Styles songs at karaoke), Project Hail Mary is serious enough with the science for a global threat to feel feasible, but skips over logistics to put Grace in some perilous emotional and physical moments. A sequence where the good doctor space walks, tethered to his ship in the great void is reminiscent of the tension of Gravity, while flashbacks of what led him to be part of the crew gives grounding context to heroism. It helps that Rocky is a physical presence and not CGI regurg; voiced by lead puppeteer James Ortiz and played like a super-smart labrador, he’s a warm, sincere character that promises to prompt tears. And there’s a lightness of touch from 12 Jump Street directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller and Drew Goddard’s screenplay that manages to make Grace’ critical adventures both funny and heartfelt. Though the final coda feels unnecessary, it won’t offend, and most viewers will leave the cinema buoyed by the belief in collaboration and teamwork. One can only hope some of our world leaders catch a show…

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Pictures courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios
Project Hail Mary is out in cinemas now

Dispatches

TOM CRUISE

October 2, 2026

Screening Room

DIGGER

September 29, 2026

Screening Room

FATHERLAND

May 15, 2026

Screening Room

PROJECT HAIL MARY

March 19, 2026

2026 © hollywoodauthentic.com