It’s hard to name a young working actor in Hollywood with more credibility than Michael Fassbender. The Irish/German thesp has shot up the Hollywood ladder of late thanks to a series of carefully chosen roles appealing to cinephiles and comic fans alike – and with the recent announcement of his role in the upcoming Assassin’s Creed movie, he’s gaining new attention from legions of gamers. Whether you’re a new or an established Fass Fan, here are ten reasons why Michael Fassbender is The Man.
Minor spoilers ahead.
He's Got Style
One can’t deny Fassbender’s almost insistent suaveness. X-Men: First Class showed us the guy can rock a vintage leather jacket, and his subsequent turn as a wealthy New Yorker in 2011 drama Shame proved he can turn any look into instant cool. For a franchise drenched in as much lavish style as Assassin's Creed, the recent GQ Magazine cover boy couldn't be more suited to don the hood.
He Stood Out in a Tarantino Cast
Fassbender's performance as the extremely British Lt. Archie Hicox in Quentin Tarantino's 2009 Inglorious Basterds is a stand-out amongst a stand-out cast. It's true that Tarantino traditionally enjoys lengthy speeches from his characters, sometimes to a fault, but Fassbender's wordy French tavern scene is so perfectly executed it comes close to stealing the entire movie. Here was an actor teetering on the edge of stardom, and having a hell of a lot of fun while doing it.
One of Fassbender’s rare career missteps was as a secondary villain opposite Josh Brolin’s hero in the 2010 Western Jonah Hex. After the film was released to fairly terrible reviews, Fassbender shrugged off his involvement in an interview, quipping “Pretty awful, was it? I haven’t seen it myself.” He followed Jonah up with a performance in 2011’s critical darling Jane Eyre, for which he won numerous awards.
Even Charlize Theron Loves Him
In an infamous - brilliantly infamous - case of foot in mouth, Charlize Theron couldn’t help but reference Fassbender’s, uh, assets in Shame at the 2012 Human Rights Campaign Gala. “I have to say that I was truly impressed that you chose to play it big,” said Theron, after accepting an award from Fassbender. “Most other actors would have gone small, trust me. No, I know, because I've worked with them."
Starring in what was, no doubt, the most highly anticipated sci-fi of the year, Michael Fassbender managed to steal the show under the noses of the rest of Prometheus' considerable cast. His android David is a multi-faceted creation, swinging between cool detachment and voracious curiosity like a sinister child, his mimicry of Peter O’ Toole unsettling in its ‘not quite rightness.’ While the unfulfilled ambitions of Prometheus disappointed many, few can argue that Fassbender’s turn wasn’t utterly spellbinding.
He’s Versatile
Fassbender’s starring roles to date have included a sex-addict (Shame), a super-villain (X-Men: First Class), an Irish hunger striker (Hunger) and an android (Prometheus). He's the king of reinvention, in part thanks to an ear for accents, a curiously malleable face and, like contemporary Christian Bale, a commitment to changing his body drastically for a part (he undertook the infamous 300 training regimen, for example, and dropped 40 pounds for his role in Hunger.) But it’s his ability to turn these roles into something unexpected every time, which makes The Fass more than the sum of his parts.
He’s Unafraid to Tackle Tricky Subjects
Fassbender’s turn as a sex-addicted New Yorker in Shame is one of the more courageous performances by a mainstream actor in recent memory. This is a film where Fassbender (literally) bares everything, his horror-stricken grimaces in some of Shame’s, ahem, more climactic moments painfully intimate. His performance is so accomplished that director Steve McQueen publicly determined America was ‘too scared of sex,’ after Fassbender failed to be nominated for an Academy Award.
He Was a Great Magneto
Fassbender brought just the right amount of steely intensity to Magneto in X-Men: First Class. His Magneto is unassuming and chilling; a man who draws steel fillings out of teeth with a debonair air more evocative of Connery’s Bond than a super-villain. It’s testament to his performance that he beat out Lord Voldemort and Loki in the Favorite Villain category in IGN’s 2011 Summer Movie Awards, described at the time as stealing scenes with ‘savvy understatement, physical grace and brooding menace.’
He’s Got Cred
At the announcement that Fassbender was donning the Assassin’s Hood, the Internet went wild on a familiar theme: ‘WILL FASSBENDER KILL THE VIDEO GAME TO MOVIE CURSE?” The hysteria is somewhat understandable; Fassbender is an actor of a caliber one rarely sees in video game adaptations. That said, Bob Hoskins starred in Super Mario Bros., and look where that got everyone.
He's Co-producing Assassin’s Creed
While his starring role in Ubisoft’s upcoming Assassin’s Creed movie is an exciting prospect, his investment as a co-producer through his own DMC Film label is more intriguing. Little of the history behind the decision has been made public, but the move suggests a confidence in both the franchise and the creative control behind the film one rarely sees in usual ‘gamer-for-pay’ star turns.
What do you guys think of Michael Fassbender's casting in the Assassin's Creed Movie? Let us know in the comments.
Lucy O'Brien is Assistant Editor at IGN AU. You should talk to her about games, horror movies and the TV show Freaks & Geeks on IGN here or find her and the rest of the Australian team by joining the IGN Australia Facebook community.
Source : ign[dot]com
