Michael Fassbender – the 'worldly gentleman' of the silver screen

Although he became famous later than his peers, his versatile acting and masculine appearance make this actor of German and Irish descent a hot name in Hollywood.

Michael Fassbender is a “rare gem” in world cinema. At 38 years old and having only been acting for 10 years, the actor has left an indelible mark in the hearts of his fans. Director Steve McQueen compared Michael Fassbender to a “chameleon” because of his ability to transform. Whether he was given the role of a soldier surrounded by enemies, a sex addict, a frustrated mutant or a brutal slave owner..., the actor still knew how to make that character his own.

Actor Michael Fassbender.

A new “Marlon Brando”

The actor, born in 1977, has a German father and a Northern Irish mother. He was born in his father's homeland and began living in his mother's homeland at the age of two. At the age of 19, Fassbender began attending Drama Centre London acting school and worked as a bartender, a postman... to earn money to support his life. Before 300, most of Fassbender's roles were on stage or the small screen. His most notable work at that time was the classic war TV series Band of Brothers produced by Steven Spielberg.

If in his first film - 300, Fassbender seemed to be lost in the shadow of Gerrard Butler and hundreds of other muscular actors wearing loincloths and shirts, only two years later, he made a breakthrough. In the film Hunger (2008) directed by Steve McQueen, Fassbender played the role of prisoner Bobby Sands who used hunger strike to express his resistance. To look like Sands in real life when fasting, Fassbender followed a strict diet with only 600 calories consumed per day. As a result, he lost 14 kg and his role caused a stir at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.

Michael Fassbender lost 14 kg to have a skinny body in the movie "Hunger".

The reason why Michael Fassbender is compared to Daniel Day-Lewis, Marlon Brando... is because of the hard work and dedication he puts into each role. Like his famous predecessors, Fassbender always tries to get into the character's mind so that he can think, act and feel like them. If Brandon was not afraid to act in controversial hot scenes in Last Tango in Paris (1972), his junior Fassbender also bravely showed off his entire body in Shame (2011).

In Shame, Michael Fassbender plays a wealthy man with a sex addiction. The actor went directly to treatment centers to talk to people with nymphomania and even read the script up to... 350 times. As a result, Shame was rated as one of the best films of 2011, with compliments for Fassbender. He received nominations for "Best Actor" at BAFTA, Golden Globe but was surprisingly absent from the Oscars that year. This made McQueen angry and called it a scandal: "America only likes happy endings and is afraid to touch on the subject of sex".

In the third project of the McQueen - Fassbender duo, 12 Years a Slave (2013), this actor continued to take on another challenging role: the brutal slave owner Edwin Epps. In the film with the theme of slavery, the character Edwin Epps represents the worst, most evil of a dark chapter in American history. Epps found pleasure in exploiting black slaves and made the audience's heart ache every time he whipped the skinny body of the girl Patsey (Lupita Nyong'o later won an Oscar for this role).

From the moment he received the script, Fassbender begged Steve McQueen to join the project because "I believed I could make Epps a convincing character." He got so into character that when he performed the slave beating and rape scene, he fainted in front of the entire crew. The outstanding role brought Fassbender his first and only Oscar nomination to date.

Michael Fassbender once exposed his entire body when playing a sex addict in the movie "Shame".

Not only does Fassbender get into character, he is also extremely hard-working. His co-star in Steve Jobs (2015), Kate Winslet, exclaimed: “I have never seen an actor work as hard as he does. Michael is incredibly professional. His script has 182 pages of dialogue, but he is the only one who can read the lines without holding the script in his hand.”

The actor has bad luck at the box office.

Michael Fassbender's acting career is not only associated with director Steve McQueen's projects. When collaborating with Quentin Tarantino in Inglorious Basterds (2009), the character of Lieutenant Archie made many girls fall in love with his strong, rugged beauty with the demeanor of a gentleman even when he was near death. In the independent film Frank, his character even wore a mask for more than 90% of the film but still made the audience feel the psychological and emotional developments.

The young mutant Magneto in the two films X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past is also a notable role of Fassbender. Through Fassbender's performance, the audience understands the authoritarianism and determination in the role of leader of the Brotherhood organization of Magneto - played by Ian McKellen in the original X-Men series. If Patrick Stewart (as the old Professor X) once praised James McAvoy (as the young Professor X), Ian McKellen went even further after watching Fassbender play Magneto: "I want to marry him".

The German-born actor became widely known for his role as young Magneto in the "X-Men" series.

To date, the two X-Men films are still the most commercially successful in Michael Fassbender's career. Despite his acting talent and passion, this star is still not a name that can attract audiences to the cinema. The failures of Jonah Hex, Haywire, The Counselor or recently Steve Jobs and Macbeth in terms of revenue have made Fassbender's loyal fans disappointed on behalf of their idol. They hope that this curse of the actor will be erased in 2016 with two anticipated blockbusters, X-Men: Apocalypse and Assassin's Creed.

Michael Fassbender is a potential candidate for next year's Oscar season for acting with his roles in Steve Jobs and Macbeth. Although both of these works did not do well at the box office, no one can deny Fassbender's acting ability as he has continuously received high praise from critics.

According to VNE