How Sandra Hüller Approached Playing a Nazi

One of Germany’s most celebrated actresses probes characters with unusual depth. But to portray a Fascist wife, in “The Zone of Interest,” she reversed her usual method—and withheld her empathy. Rebecca Mead talks to Hüller about her craft:

When Hüller was approached to play Hedwig, she was initially skeptical. “I always refused to play Fascists—which, of course, especially in international productions, come your way from time to time as a German actress,” she told me over lunch at a restaurant in Leipzig, where she lives with her twelve-year-old daughter. (Hüller is not with the girl’s father.) The neighborhood was filled with galleries and restaurants, and the pavement of its main street, Karl-Heine Strasse, was studded with Stolpersteine—memorial plaques outside buildings whose former residents were murdered in the Holocaust. We sat in a pleasant outdoor area, and Hüller’s dog, a Weimaraner mix, rested beside her on a blanket that Hüller had brought from home. (The dog appears in “The Zone of Interest” as the family pet.) “I didn’t like the idea of putting on a Nazi uniform like that, or using language like that—to get close to the energy of that, or to discover there would be fun in that,” Hüller went on. “I have seen colleagues that actually have fun doing it. Maybe it’s still in their bodies from former generations. They like to change their language and speak like that”—the tone of her voice changed, her usually soft-spoken, careful speech becoming harsh and rat-a-tat. Reverting to her own voice, she asked, “Why do they do it? They could speak like a normal person.”

Hüller also disapproves of projects that use the Nazi era as a canvas upon which to paint a dramatic story that has little to do with Fascism. (Netflix’s recent soapy drama “All the Light We Cannot See” could be considered a prime example.) She was therefore attracted to the pointed absence of drama in Glazer’s screenplay: nothing much happens beyond what we know is happening offscreen, as the murderous apparatus under Höss’s command becomes ever more efficient. She told me, “Jonathan and I had a lot of conversations about the traps in this kind of story we wanted to tell—which is not really a story. There is a couple, and one wants to leave, and the other doesn’t.

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What Happens to a School Shooter’s Sister?

Twenty-five years ago, ninth grader Kip Kinkel shot and killed his parents and then opened fire at his school, Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon, killing two teenagers and injuring 25 students. This was in 1998, before the rise of school shootings and gun violence had yet to put places like Columbine and Parkland on the map. While Kip has been in prison, he has stayed in close contact with his older sister, Kristin; she is his lifeline and the reason why Kip is still alive today. How has the tragedy affected Kristin? Has she been able to create an existence distinct from her identity as Kip Kinkel’s sister? Jennifer Gonnerman tackles a tough story.

I was surprised by her willingness to be so candid with a stranger. It seemed that part of her decision to speak with me had to do with timing—this year marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of her brother’s crimes. In the past, she had worried that anything she said publicly might bring more pain to the families of the students Kip had shot, but now that a quarter century had passed she hoped this was less likely. I also sensed that her decision to tell her story was driven in large part by a desire to help her brother. He remains in prison, but they are still in close contact.

We sat down at a table together, and I asked Kip what his life would have been like if his sister had not stood by him. He answered without hesitating. “I probably wouldn’t be here,” he said. “If I didn’t have her love and support, I probably would have ended things a long time ago.”

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Tyrian Purple: The Lost Ancient Pigment That Was More Valuable Than Gold

Tyrian purple was once the most noble shade and expensive pigment of ancient times. Made from the mucus and secretions of three species of sea snails, this valuable dye was the color of “strength, sovereignty and money.” For the BBC, Zaria Gorvett writes a fascinating account of the most prized purple shade in history: its origins, its disappearance, and now its revival, thanks to a Tunisian man who has spent years replicating the dye.

Nouira, who works as a consulting manager, was immediately reminded of a story he had learned at school – the legend of Tyrian purple. He raced to the local harbour, where he found many more snails, exactly like the one on the beach. Their little spiral bodies are covered in spikes, so they often become trapped in fishermen’s nets. “They hate them,” he says. One man was plucking them out of his net and putting them in an old tomato can – which Nouira later took back to his apartment.

To begin with, Nouira’s experiment was extremely disappointing. That night, he cracked the snails open and looked for the vivid purple entrails he had seen on the beach. But there was nothing there except pale flesh. He put it all in a bag to throw away, and went to bed. The next day, the bag’s contents had undergone a transformation. “At that time, I had no clue that the purple was initially transparent – it’s like water,” he says.

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Everybody Knows Flo From Progressive. Who Is Stephanie Courtney?

At GQ, and now at NYT Mag, Caity Weaver is a profile artist of the highest caliber, able to approach any and everything with curiosity and an sharp, infectious enthusiasm. She’s done it with superstars; she’s done it with glitter; now, she does it with Stephanie Courtney, an actor who for 15 years has made a (very good) living as what amounts to a corporate mascot. Comedy. Ambition. Business. Dreams. Fulfillment. The concept of “enough.” Nothing is too lofty for Weaver to wrestle it onto the page, and nothing is heavy enough to keep this feature from soaring off the page and into your group chat.

If my visit to the “Superstore” set can be taken as representative, being closely involved with the production of popular TV commercials for large national brands is the best possible outcome for a human life. The scale and complexity of the operation at the center of Courtney’s work is eye-popping. Every fleeting football-game-interrupting Progressive ad is the product of hours of labor from more than a hundred people. On set, a cat wrangler stood just out of frame, ready to pounce with a backup cat if the primary cat failed. Trays of lickerish delights — crostini with prosciutto, cups of ethereal parfait — were discreetly proffered, at frequent intervals, to people scrutinizing monitors. Every lens, light and politely anxious face was turned heliotropically toward Courtney, in a rented living room, trying to remember, while delivering her line, that Progressive was offering deals “for new parents” rather than “to new parents” — a possibly meaningful distinction. This wasn’t a critically acclaimed Hulu series; there was actually a lot riding on this. It needed to be the same, but slightly different, and every bit as successful as the 200 that had come before it, so that everyone would be asked to return to this job — not necessarily, perhaps not exactly, the job of their dreams, but a better job than anyone could ever hope for, bolstered by friendly faces and fantastic catering and a sumptuous corporate budget — in perpetuity.

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Inside the Weird and Wonderful World of Miniatures

Miniatures are having a moment. This intricate art of building and furnishing tiny worlds exploded during the pandemic, and has continued to grow popular through TikTok as well as shows like Best in Miniature. For Esquire, Scott Huler immerses himself in the world of miniaturists and seeks to understand the why behind these delicate and incredibly detailed dioramas called roomboxes. Are they places in which to escape? Spaces to control? Settings to find focus, or perhaps peace? Perhaps all of the above.

This is what distinguishes miniatures: this sense that just offstage, there’s more going on if you could just get small enough to walk through that little doorway. That’s what I was looking to understand. Then Off told me something.

“I put things in drawers,” he said. “In my rooms.” Those roomboxes are behind glass. But if Off includes a table in a roombox, and that table has a drawer, well: something will be in that drawer. Pencils, a sewing kit, tools, cutlery. Nobody will ever see it. Nobody will ever know it’s there, yet putting it in there is an essential part of what Off is doing. It’s about a story. “My whole life,” he said, whether creating roomboxes or connecting with clients to sell real estate, “has been about the story.”

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Our Most-Read Longreads Originals of 2023

This story was funded by our members. Join Longreads and help us to support more writers.

Today kicks off our annual year-end series. We’re grateful for another year of Longreads and thank our members for their continued support. With the community’s help, we published dozens of original stories and reading lists from both established and emerging writers, including contributors who had never been published before. Each week, our editors also read and recommended exceptional nonfiction stories from across the web.

Our Best of 2023 collection honors writers, journalists, news publications, and literary outlets publishing important, moving, and memorable work. We’re thrilled to launch this collection with a list of our 10 most popular essays and reported stories.

—Carolyn, Cheri, Krista, Peter, and Seyward

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1. The Strangely Beautiful Experience of Google Reviews

Will McCarthy | January 3, 2023 | 12 minutes (3,313 words)

Glimpses of humanity in an unlikely corner of the internet.

2. Who’s Afraid of Lorne Michaels?

Seth Simons | August 17, 2023 | 15 minutes (4,165 words)

Very rarely can we see an entire system reflected in one person. The creator and executive producer of Saturday Night Live is such a person.

3. How to Survive a Car Crash in 10 Easy Steps

Anne Lagamayo | May 11, 2023 | 4,252 words (15 minutes)

A journalist navigates a world forever changed by her traumatic brain injury.

4. The Road to Becoming Enough

Cassidy Randall | February 16, 2023 | 4,141 words (15 minutes)

I began, if not to turn away from the mythical notion of a man to “complete” me, to accept that there was no love out there for me. I chose mountains instead.

5. Fast Times on America’s Slowest Train

Harrison Scott Key | October 3, 2023 | 14 minutes (4,055 words)

A surreal train ride between Chicago and New Orleans proves that Amtrak still has a lot to offer. (Not including speed or the food.)

6. Meals for One

Sharanya Deepak | June 22, 2023 | 19 minutes (5,246 words)

On what it means to nourish ourselves and others.

7. Bad Tape

Dan Hernandez | February 28, 2023 | 16 minutes (4,503 words)

What I learned about judgment from a car thief, a bank robber, and a mysterious VHS.

8. I Tried to Forget My Whole Life. I’m Glad I Failed.

John Paul Scotto | July 6, 2023 | 11 minutes (3,069 words)

The hindsight of an adulthood autism diagnosis.

9. The Teacher Crush

Jessica L. Pavia | February 21, 2023 | 20 minutes (5,721 words)

What happens when a teenager develops a risky infatuation?

10. Age, Sex, Location

Kira Homsher | March 14, 2023 | 3,308 words (12 minutes)

Chatrooms taught me everything I needed to know about what real people were like before I had to grow up and become one of them.

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Explore our Best of 2023 lists

You can also browse all of our year-end collections since 2011 in one place.

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Piecing Together My Father’s Murder

In August 1999, Orbey’s father was murdered while their family was on vacation in Turkey. He was only 3 years old, and as he grew up, most of what he learned about his dad and the murder was through the internet, or from bits of information gleaned from his older sister, G. In this personal essay, Orbey recounts his own investigation into his father’s death.

I felt caught in a peculiar quandary. If I repeated details that G had already written down, was I relying on a primary source or appropriating what my peers in creative-writing workshops would call her “lived experience”? The tautology maddened me. I had lived the experience, too, yet I felt like either a mimic, reciting my family’s recollections, or a fabulist, mistaking my imagination for fact. My ignorance isolated me from G and our mom. I had a sense that I was hammering on a bolted door, begging them to admit me to an awful place. And why would I want to get in? Well, because they were there.

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