Sandra Hüller to Star as Wolfgang Herrndorf in Maria Schrader’s ‘Work and Structure’

Full account

Sandra Hüller has been cast as the late German writer and artist Wolfgang Herrndorf in "Arbeit und Struktur" ("Work and Structure"), a film adaptation directed by Maria Schrader of Herrndorf's acclaimed autobiographical account of living with terminal illness. The project pairs two of the most prominent women in contemporary German cinema: Hüller, an Oscar nominee for "Anatomy of a Fall" who has also appeared in "The Zone of Interest" and, this year, "Project Hail Mary" and Paweł Pawlikowski's "Fatherland"; and Schrader, known for "I'm Your Man," "She Said," "Unorthodox" and "Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe." Schrader is writing the screenplay with regular collaborator Jan Schomburg.

Herrndorf began keeping a public online diary after being diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour in 2010, chronicling the years that followed until his death. The resulting book, published posthumously in 2013, went on to become a publishing sensation in Germany and is widely regarded as one of the most significant works of recent German literature. The film will trace Herrndorf through this period, depicting a life pulled between hospital treatment and creative bursts of energy, as he continued writing, maintained close friendships and a relationship with his partner, and grappled with an emotional range running from panic to calm and from despair to hope, all while pursuing several literary projects at once.

In statements accompanying the announcement, Hüller described having been captivated by Herrndorf's writing since first encountering it, calling it simultaneously surprising, unsettling and comforting, and said portraying him at the point his life was upended, just as he was finding his voice as a writer, was both an honour and a considerable challenge. Schrader characterised the source material as an intimate record of what it means to be alive, in which a man resists his own disappearance through words and becomes, in the face of death, more vividly himself than before; she called bringing that account to the screen one of the most compelling projects she could take on.

The film is being produced by Komplizen Film alongside Studiocanal, Germany's ZDF and the French outfit Haut et Court, with shooting due to start in early 2027. Studiocanal will oversee international sales and plans cinema releases in Germany, France and Italy in 2028. Public funding support named in some reports includes Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, Germany's federal cultural film funding scheme, the FFA and Creative Europe's MEDIA programme. The casting continues a run of high-profile roles for Hüller, including another instance of her playing a male historical figure, having earlier taken on a similar gender-swapped part in Markus Schleinzer's "Rose," for which she won a best-acting prize in Berlin this year.

• variety.com
• deadline.com
• www.hollywoodreporter.com