Michael Fassbender

by Jim Maloney

  He also joked about being naked in Shame and Hunger. ‘From the start of my career, I’ve been naked. My first job was a commercial for SAS airlines. I wake up in a pink room next to a beautiful blonde girl and get out of bed naked. From that point forward, it’s been in all of my contracts: “He must be naked in this film.”’

  Having won so many awards and been feted around the world, Michael and his colleagues took a deep breath as the nominations for the Academy Awards were announced at the end of January. Despite trying not to think about it, this was the big one. The ultimate accolade. The stuff of dreams.

  The excitement and anxiety were heightened the day before nominations were due to be announced when hotly tipped Michael was invited to Newsweek magazine’s traditional ‘Oscar Roundtable’ chat, in which a handful of likely nominees sit around a table and are asked questions by their host. An informal occasion, it’s more akin to an A-list dinner party. Joining Michael were George Clooney, Charlize Theron, Christopher Plummer, Tilda Swinton and Viola Davis. Often the actors have not met before but this year’s gathering had a lot of shared history. George Clooney and Viola Davis had worked together on Solaris a decade ago and he had lent her his Lake Como villa for her honeymoon. He was also friends with Tilda Swinton, having bonded on the films Michael Clayton and Burn After Reading. And Michael and Charlize had spent months together shooting Prometheus.

  In high spirits, Michael popped out just before the photo-shoot with a publicist and returned with a bottle of vodka and a Bloody Mary mix. In a throwback to his bartender days, he set up an impromptu bar in the green room, pouring drinks for everybody despite it being well before noon. (Incidentally he can also mix up a fine vodka martini.) Michael and George then threw themselves into a boisterous game of table-tennis and had to be encouraged away for the round-table conversation to begin.

  During the course of the conversation there was much light-hearted banter, led by George, who continually teased Michael about his penis, suggesting that it would make an ideal centrepiece for the table! And in a discussion about the rules governing the showing of on-screen erections, George halted Tilda and gestured towards Michael, saying, ‘Let’s go to the pro.’ This prompted Michael to proclaim that he had ‘peed on cue’ during Shame, which he hadn’t been sure he’d be able to do.

  When the topic moved on to trailers, Michael told how impressed he’d been the first time he had a big trailer on a movie location. George felt that some actors were vain in demanding big trailers but Tilda argued that she thought they were for the protection of actors and that it was not, ‘Oooh, I’ve got a big trailer, then I must have a big cock.’ Quick as a flash, Charlize quipped, ‘Leave him out of this,’ glancing at Michael. ‘There are exceptions,’ he replied, turning red.

  A few days earlier, Michael had been asked by Total Film magazine if he thought that the Academy would be brave enough to give an award to something as challenging as Shame. ‘That’s not really my concern,’ he replied.

  I’d be lying to say that it wouldn’t be nice to get an Oscar. I would be flattered and honoured. But for me to sit down and start thinking about it… there’s no benefit to that, there’s not a lot I can do with that information. Let’s just see what happens. For me, what’s really more encouraging and flattering and makes me feel, ‘Wow, thank God!’ is to see the response of the public and journalists.

  It’s encouraging because it’s the argument I always have about how there are intelligent audiences out there who are willing to be challenged and don’t shy away from things that are uncomfortable at times to watch. When I hear people say, I don’t know if an audience is ready to accept that or see that, it’s like, how the fuck do you know? That’s what is really nice about it. The rest, the awards… let’s see what happens. Everything after that is a bonus.

  Michael’s ‘que sera, sera’ attitude was to serve him well when the nominations were finally announced.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CEREMONY SEASON

  To the great surprise of many, Michael and Shame failed to make the list of nominees for the Oscars. But Michael’s omission in the Best Actor category wasn’t the only shock. His fellow Golden Globe nominees Leonardo DiCaprio and Ryan Gosling were also left out, and so was Tilda Swinton for Best Actress.

  At the London premiere of Shame, Michael was asked about missing out on an Oscar nomination. ‘Well, of course there’s always a moment where you’re like, “Oh shit,” but I’m living a pretty charmed life,’ he said. ‘A statue is nice but the fact that I get to work with so many talented people is much more amazing and nourishing for me.’

  Steve McQueen was more irritated though and more outspoken. ‘In America they’re too scared of sex – that’s why he [Michael] wasn’t nominated,’ he insisted. ‘If you look at the Best Actor list you’re saying, “Michael Fassbender is not on that list?” It’s kind of crazy. But that’s how it is. It’s an American award, let them have it.’

  He wasn’t alone in his opinion of the Academy being put off by the subject matter of Shame – several film critics agreed with him. But it was The Artist that charmed the Academy and on the night scooped a total of five awards including Best Film, Best Actor for Jean Dujardin and Best Director.

  A few days before the Oscar nominations were announced, Michael attended a Q&A for Shame at his local cinema, the Hackney Picture House, where he was questioned on stage by the film editor of Time Out magazine, Dave Calhoun. Those present were given some interesting insights into Michael and the way he worked. When he was asked about his rush of films – Inglourious Basterds, X-Men: First Class, Jane Eyre, A Dangerous Method and Haywire – he grinned and, paraphrasing washed-up actor Troy McClure from The Simpsons, he replied, ‘It reminds me of The Simpsons, “Hi, I’m Troy McClure, you might have seen me in…”’

  He also explained the way that he approached an acting role. For a man who likes to be fully prepared – reading and re-reading a script up to 300 times – when it came to the actual acting, he didn’t like things too planned.

  ‘That’s boring. You want to prepare yourself and then be able to react, be awake, be aware and that’s when you’re really cooking,’ he said. ‘It’s like music and you are jamming as opposed to rolling out a very polished set. It’s like an album. You go into a studio and you have to do something within a restricted time. It doesn’t give you the time to polish it. It might not be a perfect piece but the essence of it is something really interesting. The rawness of it and the electricity.’

  Despite his consuming passion for his work, Michael has always been a very down-to-earth person and aware of the dangers of being perceived as pretentious and a bore. So he makes sure that he shakes off his roles at the end of a day’s filming. ‘When you’re meeting other people you don’t want them thinking, “Oh, here goes Mike again, talking about his characters,”’ he said.

  At the end of January, he attended the UK Gala Premiere of A Dangerous Method at the Mayfair Hotel in London with Keira Knightley and Viggo Mortensen. At the after-show party, he really let his hair down. Dancing with Keira, he bent her over backwards as he hammed it up on the dance floor. Later he played the piano and even danced with Viggo, grinning and laughing, before being carried out on the back of one of the guests to a waiting taxi – the Sun later splashed pictures of him in high spirits.

  Reviews for A Dangerous Method were generally good, although a common theme was that it was a little plodding. Most enthusiastic was the Hollywood Reporter, which gushed, ‘Precise, lucid and thrillingly disciplined, this story of boundary-testing in the early days of psychoanalysis is brought to vivid life by the outstanding lead performances of Keira Knightley, Viggo Mortensen and Michael Fassbender.’ To the Observer it was ‘engrossing, admirably acted’, while the Independent said, ‘The film boasts two assured performances from Michael Fassbender and Viggo Mortensen and a very brave, if uneven one, from Keira Knightley in her most challenging role to date.’

  The Guardian, however, thought the film
‘heavy and lugubrious. It is a tale that comes marinated in port and choked on pipe-smoke. You long for it to hop down from the couch, throw open the windows and run about in the garden.’ The Daily Telegraph also thought it lacked pace: ‘What’s odd, for Cronenberg, is how the film can feel like an advert for buttoned-down restraint rather than danger or release. Spotlessly organised, it’s an exercise the director knows he can pull off without breaking a sweat.’ Empire magazine said, ‘It never really gets under the skin in the way Cronenberg does at his best.’

  The Toronto Star had a different take. It liked the slow pace of the movie, saying, ‘Cronenberg has reached the stage of his career where he doesn’t feel it necessary to pander to expectations. Instead he seeks to engage us, and he succeeds.’ The Seattle Times concurred that it was ‘an elegant, almost stately film, with the emphasis on ideas and discussion rather than dramatic action’. The Los Angeles Times, too, enjoyed the understated acting between the two male leads – ‘It’s fascinating to see the exceptionally charismatic Fassbender squeeze himself into the role of the aristocratic, restrained Jung, and it’s just as enjoyable to see Mortensen bring an unexpected virility to his sybaritic, cigar-chomping Freud.’

  In February Michael was voted Best Actor for Shame at the Evening Standard British Film Awards. (He didn’t attend the ceremony so Abi Morgan accepted the award in his place.) And Michael was definitely man of the month as far as the glossy magazines were concerned, appearing on the cover of GQ, Interview and the Singapore men’s style magazine August Man, and being pictured naked in bed with a sheet covering his modesty for W magazine.

  Touching on his own view of personal relationships, he admitted to Marie Claire magazine that he found them difficult to pursue because of his work. ‘To be honest, relationships as a whole for me in this industry have been a difficult thing to maintain,’ he said, ‘It goes with the territory. I would be prepared to walk away from relationships because of my job. I wanted to give this everything and go for it 110 per cent, so I guess my work has taken precedence over that.’

  On the same subject, he was equally honest with OK! magazine: ‘It’s very difficult to maintain a relationship doing this kind of job. I know people do manage to maintain marriages and relationships within it, but I’m pretty selfish in terms of how I work and the time I take.

  ‘I would want to give my all to a relationship if I did find the right woman but I rarely even get to spend time with friends and family and would struggle to fully commit. I disappear, I don’t see my friends for like four weeks or very seldom I see them, so it’s not fair on a partner when you’re not there and investing and giving them something to sort of work with. At the moment, I’m concentrating on work.’

  On a more positive note he added that he doesn’t ‘close himself off to love’ and thought that it was a wonderful thing. ‘If you fall in love, you’ve got to go with it because it’s an amazing journey. One person can do something, two people together can experience things together – it’s much more beautiful to share.’

  For those taking notes, he also talked about the parts of a woman’s body that he found particularly attractive – the neck, shoulders, hands and wrists.

  A few days later it was a weekend of award ceremonies. First he travelled to Dublin where he enjoyed a meal in the Chop House restaurant with some friends on the Friday night before attending the IFTAs at the Dublin Convention Centre the following day, where he scooped the Best Actor award for Shame.

  In the morning it was a quick flight back to London with his parents, who were accompanying him to the BAFTAs. Here Michael was competing with Leonardo DiCaprio, Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Jean Dujardin in the Best Actor category. Dujardin won and Shame lost out to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy for Outstanding British Film but Michael couldn’t have been more delighted when Pitch Black Heist was announced as Best Short Film, heartily applauding John Maclean as he made his way to the stage.

  Outside on the red carpet, Michael told reporters that John was writing a feature film that he would appear in. When John was asked about why Michael wanted to work with him, he joked, ‘He’s so talented he can work like this on many different levels. Tarantino at the top, Steve McQueen one level down and me right at the very bottom!’ Michael then took Josef and Adele with him to the after-show party – and this time he was on his best behaviour!

  With the awards season in full swing, a week later he was in Germany for the Berlin International Film Festival where Haywire was premiered and the fight scenes were greeted with much whooping and cheering.

  In his early years Michael had laid down a steady body of work in which he had applied himself to learning his craft. Despite his phenomenal success and the attendant acclaim that followed his breakthrough with Hunger, memories of the lean times are never far from his mind. He had wondered then whether he would ever make it and he remains level-headed now about stardom. He enjoys his time in the spotlight but he is aware that there is always a ‘new boy’ lurking in the shadows, waiting to take his place.

  ‘Nothing changes. My life continues how it is. It really is that simple,’ he told the London newspaper Metro. ‘All this other stuff… it’s kind of like the hula hoop. You know the hula hoop comes into fashion and everybody’s doing the hula hoop and three years later it’s that bouncing space hopper or the skateboard. So at the moment, a sort of amount of attention comes my way but it is what it is.’

  Towards the end of 2011, Michael and screenwriter Ronan Bennett (best known for 2009’s Public Enemies) had been working on an idea to make a film about the mythical eighth-century Celtic hero, Cuchulain. By February 2012, they had managed to raise the finance through their new production company Finn McCool Films. Fittingly, the company was named after another mighty figure from Irish legend, a 52ft tall giant who threw stones and turf into the sea while fighting the Scottish giant Benandonnar – thereby creating the famous Giant’s Causeway of hexagonal basalt columns.

  Cuchulain is the central character in the Ulster Cycle, an epic series of Old Irish legends which tells the saga of the Ulaid tribe headed by King Conchobar and their battles against the invading Connachta tribe from the south, led by Queen Mebh. The most prominent figure in the legends is Conchobar’s nephew Cuchulain, a fearsome warrior with fantastic fighting skills. In the most famous story, The Cattle Raid of Cooley, Mebh sends her vast army to steal Conchobar’s prize white bull. After the Ulaid have been disabled by a curse, 17-year-old Cuchulain finds himself the only one capable of resistance. He invokes the right of single combat at fords and defeats the warriors one by one until he has to face his foster brother and best friend, Ferdiad. After four days of struggle Cuchulain eventually triumphs but is filled with remorse for having killed Ferdiad.

  Cuchulain’s favoured means of transport was the chariot but Michael opted for a more modern version of horsepower when he was invited to appear on the BBC motoring show Top Gear. His love of speed and Formula 1 meant that he was asked to take part in one of the most enjoyable segments of the show, called Star in a Reasonably Priced Car. This involves a celebrity driving as fast as they can around a track in an average car, with their speed put on a board ranking the fastest to the lowest. Past celebrities to have taken part included Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz.

  The host, Jeremy Clarkson, introduced Michael to the show by saying he was half Irish, half German – ‘so top o’ the morgen to Michael Fassbender.’ Michael was not the only excited person in the studio. Jeremy revealed that in all the years he had been hosting Top Gear, only a handful of his friends had asked for tickets to the show. But when Michael was due on, he had been besieged by people wanting tickets and had to hire a mini-bus to transport a crowd of girls!

  Jeremy was surprised to learn that his guest had only owned one car in his life – a Peugeot 306, turbo-diesel Spinnaker, special edition – which he had crashed. In the early part of the show, Michael got to drive a McLaren racing car around a track. Then it was time for Star in a Reasonably Pri
ced Car, for which he was given a Kia. Driving it was made more difficult because ice had formed on part of the track and, although most of it had been dug away, some remained on one corner.

  During his drive, shown in the studio on a screen, he had everyone laughing as he sat, tense and determined in the driving seat muttering, ‘I’m sweating like a cornered nun.’ After he was seen crossing the finishing line, Jeremy asked him how he thought he did. Michael said he would have been happy with 1 minute, 45 seconds but he didn’t think he would get that. On the leader board he could see the likes of Tom Cruise on 1.44.2, Nick Frost on 1.44.5, Simon Pegg on 144.9, Cameron Diaz on 145.2, Rupert Grint on 1.45.5 and Boris Becker on 145.9.

  When Jeremy announced that he had done it in 1.42.8, Michael was shocked. The audience applauded wildly as Jeremy informed him that it was the third fastest time ever and put him just behind leader Matt Le Blanc on 1.42.1 and Rowan Atkinson on 142.2.

  Having taken a break from making back-to-back movies, Michael was now eager to get working again. He had been in early discussions with Ridley Scott to star in his new movie, The Counselor, playing a successful lawyer who ends up in a desperate situation after dabbling in the drug business. The screenplay was by Cormac McCarthy, writer of the acclaimed No Country for Old Men, The Road and All the Pretty Horses. The film’s producer, Steven Schwartz, explained that the story was set in a masculine world into which two women intrude to play leading roles. Michael signed up to the film in February, with filming due to start in May.