Helena Zengel

Helena Zengel is a German actress. She is best known for her roles in the films *System Crasher* (2019) and *News of the World* (2020).

After *System Crasher* won a number of international awards, Zengel was cast by Universal Pictures to play a leading role in the American Western film *News of the World*, directed by British film director Paul Greengrass, which was her first international film. In this adaptation of the 2016 novel of the same name by Canadian-American writer Paulette Jiles, which starred Tom Hanks as Captain Jefferson Kidd, Zengel portrays a 10-year-old German orphan named Johanna Leonberger who was raised by the Kiowa; most of her performance is in the Kiowa language. For her performance, Zengel received nominations for a Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Zengel also dubbed herself in the Italian, German, French, and Spanish versions; the dubbing is limited to the lines she spoke in English.