Actor Spotlight: Michael Fassbender
The major talent returns to the limelight for the first time in years
Michael Fassbender experienced a fast-rising start to his career, earning raves for his performances in Hunger, Fish Tank, Inglourious Basterds, and more. After that, he had several flashy years playing Magneto in the X-Men movies, David in the Alien franchise, and Steve Jobs in Danny Boyle’s biopic. Then, things took a downward turn. Fassbender starred in debacles like The Snowman and Assassin’s Creed, and the X-Men franchise swiftly nosedived.
Following a hiatus from acting (presumably living the good life with his wife Alicia Vikander and their son, while auto racing for Porsche on the side), the Irish actor is back front-and-center in two new movies this month for the first time since 2017 (if you don’t count X-Men: Dark Phoenix, which I doubt he does). Fassbender plays the titular hitman in David Fincher’s The Killer (streaming on Netflix) and leads Taika Waititi’s sports comedy Next Goal Wins (in theaters). It’s thrilling to have one of our most gifted actors back in the fold, so here’s a couple of our favorite Fassbender performances!
Billy recommends…
Prometheus
Ridley Scott didn’t need this… 12 years removed from a bunch of Oscars, a couple hits with Black Hawk Down and American Gangster, and momentum to still create whatever he wanted. And the man is double dipping.
Alien had been a movie that was approved for me to see when I was younger. Constant conversation about this horrifying movie that would have been thrown on immediately if I had the guts to suggest watching it. Then Prometheus came out and my uncle who had hyped up Alien all my life took us to see Prometheus. My first exposure to the Alien franchise and not many in-theater experiences have horrified me more.
Seeing this first allowed this world to feel so big. I wanted to search for more and thankfully there is plenty to go back to and watch. What stuck out most about this movie the first time was Michael Fassbender’s performance as David. an AI servant that keeps things operational while all humans are in cryo sleep. Fassbender’s slender unsettling display has never been used to such uneasy perfection. A character that is so knowledgeable and competent that any deviousness feels unthinkable.
Ridley Scott does such a good job at creating suspense without creating mystery. All tension is not built from what we don’t know, but what we do know. Either knowing because you’ve seen the previous movies or knowing because David is so clearly creating test scenarios for his own perverted research. Scott is the reason to show up but Fassbender is the reason to fully lean in. Magnificent and striking in every frame.
Streaming on Netflix
Drew recommends…
Hunger
Once in a blue moon, an exciting new star and filmmaker burst onto the scene with the same project. Think Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets. In 2008, Michael Fassbender was part of his (very different) version of that same phenomenon when he made Hunger with British director Steve McQueen. Their small film about the 1981 Irish hunger strike during the Troubles was both the debut feature for McQueen and Fassbender’s very first starring role.
Fassbender, Irish himself, plays Irish Republican Army member Bobby Sands, who went on a hunger strike in an attempt to regain political status for IRA prisoners such as himself. Based on that synopsis and the title, you can probably guess you’re in for a tough watch. Throughout the film, you see Sands waste away in front of your eyes while he’s brutalized by the prison officers. To their credit, McQueen and Fassbender don’t blink when it comes to the bleak subject matter. Hunger depicts these events with clear eyes and an undaunted spirit. McQueen’s camera is as unflinching as Fassbender’s performance is fearless.
Before McQueen would go on to Best Picture winner 12 Years a Slave and the underrated Widows, he got an insanely committed performance – physically, emotionally, psychologically – by a pre-fame Fassbender. Shortly after Hunger, the actor was picked up by Tarantino and sought out to play Magneto. He’s starred in much higher profile (and even better) movies, but nothing that’s felt quite as special as when he arrived as a major talent with this director 15 years ago.
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