Michael Fassbender (born 2 April 1977) is a German-Irish actor and producer. His first role was in Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg's award-winning 2001 television miniseries Band of Brothers. This was followed by work on a number of TV productions in the 2000s. His notable film roles include Lt. Archie Hicox in Quentin Tarantino's war film Inglourious Basterds (2009), Magneto in the superhero films X-Men: First Class (2011) and X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), the android David in the Ridley Scott-directed science fiction movie Prometheus (2012), and slave owner Edwin Epps in 12 Years a Slave (2013), a historical drama that earned him a 2014 Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
Other film credits include a Spartan warrior in the fantasy action film 300 (2007); Connor O'Reily, a man who is attracted to his girlfriend's 15-year-old daughter in the independent drama Fish Tank (2009); Edward Fairfax Rochester in the romantic drama Jane Eyre (2011); Carl Jung in the historical film A Dangerous Method (2011); IRA volunteer Bobby Sands in the biographical film Hunger (2008) and a sex-addicted executive in the drama Shame (2011), the latter two directed by Steve McQueen. For his role in Shame, he won the Volpi Cup Best Actor award at the 68th Venice International Film Festival held in August 2011, and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and a BAFTA. He has also performed as a theatre actor.
Early life and education
He was born in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. His mother, Adele, is from Larne, County Antrim, in Northern Ireland, and his father, Josef Fassbender, is German. According to Fassbender "family lore," his mother is the great-grand-niece of Michael Collins, an Irish leader during the War of Independence. When he was two years old, his parents moved to Killarney, County Kerry, in the Republic of Ireland, where they ran the West End House, a restaurant where his father worked as a chef. Fassbender served as an altar boy at the church his family attended. He has an older sister, Catherine, who works at the University of California, Davis as a neuropsychologist.
Fassbender and his sister spent summer holidays in Germany, and he speaks German fluently. He attended Fossa National School, and St. Brendan's College, both in Killarney, County Kerry. He discovered he wanted to be an actor at age 17 when he was cast in a play by Donie Courtney. At 19, he moved to London to study at the Drama Centre London. In 1999 he dropped out of the Drama Centre and toured with the Oxford Stage Company to perform the play Three Sisters.
Career
Early work
Before he found work as an actor, he had a period of doing "auditions interspersed with bartending stints, [and] postal delivery." Fassbender's first role was that of Burton "Pat" Christenson in Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg's award-winning WW II television miniseries Band of Brothers (2001). He played the character of Azazeal in both series of Hex on Sky One and he also starred as the main character in the music video for the song "Blind Pilots," by the British band The Cooper Temple Clause. In the video, he plays the part of a man on a stag night with his friends, only to slowly transform into a goat due to wearing a cowbell necklace.
Fassbender played the part of Jonathan Harker in a ten-part radio serialisation of Dracula produced by BBC Northern Ireland and broadcast in the Book at Bedtime series between 24 November and 5 December 2003. He was also seen in early 2004 in a Guinness television commercial, The Quarrel, playing a man who swims across the ocean from Ireland to apologise personally to his brother in New York. During the 2006 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Fassbender played Michael Collins in Allegiance, a play by Mary Kenny based on the meeting between Winston Churchill and Collins. In addition, he produced, directed and starred in the stage version of Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, along with his production company.
He appeared in Angel (UK title: The Real Life of Angel Deverell), about the rise and fall of an eccentric young British writer (played by Romola Garai) in the early 20th century. Fassbender plays her love interest and average painter Esmé. The drama â€" the first English-language effort by French director François Ozon and based on the novel by Elizabeth Taylor â€" premiered on 17 February 2007 at the Berlin International Film Festival and on 14 March 2007 in Paris. He then made a brief appearance in Dean Cavanagh and Irvine Welsh's Wedding Belles as Barney, speaking with a Scottish accent. He starred in a Guinness commercial entitled 'Quarrel' which won a gold medal at the 2005 FAB Awards.
Mainstream success
In 2006, Fassbender played the role of Stelios, a young Spartan warrior, in 300, a fantasy action film directed by Zack Snyder. The film was a commercial success. In preparation for his role as Provisional Irish Republican Army prisoner Bobby Sands in Steve McQueen's 2008 film Hunger, Fassbender underwent a crash diet that restricted him to 600 calories a day. He received the British Independent Film Award for his performance. One year after his success at the Cannes Film Festival with Hunger, he appeared in two films. The first was Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, in which he played the British officer Lieutenant Archie Hicox. The other film was Fish Tank directed by Andrea Arnold. Both films were critically acclaimed and Fassbender's work in them also well received.
In 2010, Fassbender appeared as Burke in Jonah Hex, a Western film. In an interview at San Diego Comic-Con International, a comic book convention, Fassbender commented of the role: "I kind of developed this character and really pushed it â€" I’ll see how far I pushed it ... I had this idea about the character, he’s kind of psychotic, he gets his kicks in perverted ways. I didn’t want to make it very obvious or like something you’ve seen before." Hex received predominately negative reviews. Responding to criticism of Jonah Hex in 2011, Fassbender commented: "Pretty awful, was it? I haven't seen it myself." He portrayed Quintus Dias in Neil Marshall's bloody Roman war-thriller-drama film Centurion. and was cast as 'Richard Wirth' in the Joel Schumacher film Blood Creek alongside Dominic Purcell. The story centres on a West Virginia man who comes to terms with his moral qualms and helps his brother wipe out a family that had been protecting a Nazi occultist and who had kept his brother captive for him to feed off for years. Fassbender played Edward Rochester in the 2011 film Jane Eyre, featuring Mia Wasikowska in the title role, with Cary Fukunaga directing.
Fassbender portrayed Magneto in the superhero blockbuster X-Men: First Class, the prequel to X-Men. Set in 1962, it focuses on the friendship between Charles Xavier (played by James McAvoy) and Magneto and the origin of their groups, the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants. The film was released on 3 June 2011 to general acclaim and financial success and promoted Fassbender to being more of a popular movie star. In 2011, Fassbender starred in A Dangerous Method by director David Cronenberg, playing Swiss psychiatrist and psychologist Carl Jung. The film premiered at the 2011 Venice Film Festival.
He also starred in Shame, as a man in his thirties struggling with his sexual addiction. Shame reunited him with director Steve McQueen and premiered at the 2011 Venice Film Festival, where Fassbender won a Volpi Cup best actor award for his portrayal of Brandon. Fassbender was a serious contender for an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, but he was not nominated, and according to various sources his full-frontal nudity and depiction of sexual encounters inspired voters "to fantasize, and not actually vote." Fassbender achieved critical acclaim for his performance in Shame and received nominations for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama and a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. Starring in the film raised Fassbender's profile leading to roles in larger films.
In 2012, he appeared as an M16 agent in Haywire, an action-thriller directed by Steven Soderbergh, and in the science fiction film Prometheus. Reviews of "Pometheus" praised both the film's visual aesthetic design and the acting, most notably Fassbender's performance as the android David. Fassbender played the title role in The Counselor, a 2013 film directed by Ridley Scott, and based on the Cormac McCarthy script. In 2013, he starred in 12 Years a Slave, his third collaboration with Steve McQueen. Fassbender's portrayal of Edwin Epps earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Fassbender reprised the role of Magneto in X-Men: Days of Future Past (released May 23, 2014), the sequel to X-Men: First Class. Fassbender stars in the title role in Frank (film) (released late summer 2014), a comedy loosely inspired by Frank Sidebottom, a comic persona created by English comedian Chris Sievey.
Future projects
Fassbender completed production on Slow West , a western starring Kodi Smit-McPhee and Ben Mendelsohn in 2014. He plays Silas, an enigmatic traveller. However, the film has not yet been released. It was announced in 2013 that Fassbender will take on the Shakespearean role of Macbeth in a film directed by Justin Kurzel, where he will team up with Academy Award winner Marion Cotillard as Lady Macbeth. Filming for the production began in January 2014. This film has yet to be released. Together with screenwriter Ronan Bennett, Fassbender has formed a production company, Finn McCool Films. Fassbender and Bennett are currently developing a film about the Irish mythological hero Cú Chulainn.
Fassbender announced in November 2013 that there will be a sequel to Prometheus where he will reprise his role as the android David. He will co-produce and star in the film adaptation of Assassin's Creed which was scheduled for release in late 2015, but the release date has been twice postponed. His Macbeth director, Justin Kurzel will also direct Fassbender in the upcoming Assassin's Creed film.
After winning his third IFTA award for Best Supporting Actor in 12 Years a Slave, Fassbender confirmed that he will start filming Trespass Against Us with fellow Irishman, Brendan Gleeson. His next movie, titled The Light Between Oceans based on the novel written by M.L. Stedman, began filming in New Zealand with director Derek Cianfrance in late September 2014, for theatrical release sometime in 2015. Currently (as of late October 2014), Fassbender and his co-star Rachel Weisz were filming in the South Island of New Zealand, around Dunedin. As of November 2014, Fassbender is attached to play the late Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs in a Danny Boyle-directed adaptation of Walter Isaacson's book Steve Jobs. The screenplay was written by Aaron Sorkin. Fassbender is attached after Christian Bale dropped out of the project.
Personal life
Shifting between European and American films, Fassbender resides in East London where he has lived since 1996, while making career-related visits to Los Angeles, California. Fassbender still lives in the same modest flat in Hackney, East London, that he has owned since his late 20s, when he was struggling to get enough work to make ends meet. He speaks German, though he stated before filming Inglourious Basterds that he had needed to brush up a bit on his spoken German because it was a bit rusty. He has also expressed interest in performing in a German-language film or theatre production one day. He is a lapsed Catholic.
Filmography
Feature films
Television
Fassbender was at the Top Gear studios in Surrey, England, on 8 February 2012 to film Star in a Reasonably Priced Car, where celebs try to set a fastest lap time of the Top Gear test track in a low-spec family hatchback. The lap and his interview with Jeremy Clarkson was aired on BBC2 on 19 February 2012. Fassbender narrated the 2014 F1 movie-documentary 1: Life on the Limit.
Video games
Theatre
Awards and nominations
- List of awards and nominations received by Michael Fassbender
References
External links
- Michael Fassbender at the Internet Movie Database