THE MAN, WHO NEED NO WORDS

Here is my translation of the Arte article. Posted here Arte Magazine March 2012.
 THE MAN, WHO NEED NO WORDS

He is currently one of the most sought after actors in the world - the German-Irish Michael Fassbender. For his role, he will lose 20 kilos or strips. Whether loneliness, shame, obsession - Portrait of a man of whom one buys everything.
He is one who says more when he is silent, as one who speaks. Who weeps more when he laughs, as one who cries: Michael Fassbender. It is the abyss in his eyes when he is superficial flirting with a colleague at a tête-à-tête. It is a peaceful smile, when he just stands as a skeleton just a step from starvation. It is the mad grin when the fist hits his cheek. The media from New York to South Korea celebrates Michael Fassbender, who is now 35 years old, as a "new Marlon Brando", a "new James Bond", the "next Oscar winner", and rightly so. The reasons are many.
One of them is sure that his roles are so difficult - and extreme. His breakthrough had the German-Irish actor who was born in 1977 in Heidelberg, in 2008 film "Hunger", which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. For his role as IRA prisoner Bobby Sands Fassbender lived ten weeks on berries, nuts and sardines, reduced his weight by 20 kilograms. The drama tells of the legendary hunger strike in Maze prison, Northern Ireland. In the struggle for recognition as political prisoners in 1981 ten people died, Bobby Sands was the first after 66 days of starvation. A hardly bearable film, not only because one watches a man dying, but also because it shows the horror of prisoners and guards. The urine, the faeces, the truncheons, the bleeding hands.


The altar boy

Politics and freedom are the main theme in director Steve McQueen's debut "Hunger" as well as in "Shame", in theatres since March. While the IRA prisoner Bobby Sands finds in his hunger strike the path to freedom, the sex addicts Brandon to whom everything is open, is imprisoned in his body. The role of a man, perishing on his shame, brought Fassbender the Best Actor Award at the Venice Film Festival. In "Shame", he shows not only bare skin - which caused quite a stir in the media - but above all, as he is rolled over by naked desperation. "For me, Michael Fassbender has changed the acting. He is the only one who comes into consideration for me." He, who like McQueen as a director speaks so of his actors, must have serious reasons.
Ginger beard, weathered face, faded T-shirt, jeans, always the same black leather jacket - at first glance Fassbender's Brando-Bond potential can not be recognised. He who, since he was two years old, lived with his Irish mother and a German father in Killarney, who speaks a rusty German, who loves fast cars, who played in a rock band that only had one gig, who has been an altar boy, who hates telephoning , who is not on Facebook and Twitter - he's a real Average Joe.


From barman to international star

This is precisely his strength. He is approachable, genuine, as his roles: "I like characters that have cracks and shallows - because everyone has," says Fassbender. He is not a star, more of a craftsman who shows up to press conferences in flip-flops - he does not care about appearances. If he takes a role, he holes up and reads the script 300 times and more, until it turns into flesh and blood. „Working-class attitude“, the director David Cronenberg calls it. Fassbender's ability to uncompromisingly disappear into his role is the one to earn him international fame today, for years of this was different.
It all started with the play "Reservoir Dogs" of his idol, Quentin Tarantino, which he performed as an 18-year-old with friends - 14 years later in Tarantino's action-war movie "Inglorious Basterds" as Lieutenant Hicox Fassbender will change with a single hand movement the world history. Preceding that is the London drama school and his dropout. For Steven Spielberg's War series "Band of Brothers" (2001), he went to Hollywood - but returned "with his tail between his legs" to London, as he said himself. This is followed by small roles, fear of unemployment, jobs as a bartender. Until Steve McQueen appears. This first encounter is disastrous, McQueen finds Fassbender during auditioning arrogant. He meets him against his will once again - this time they it off. Today both are bond in a close, almost tender friendship: "My top priority is not to let him down," says Fassbender in an interview. And McQueen only shoots with him. Currently both are working on the third film, "Twelve Years a Slave". Perhaps it is because how Fassbender is able to convey with a twitch of the corner of the mouth all the loneliness of a man who has to sleep with prostitutes and foreigners, because closeness is unbearable for him. Fassbender does not need words, his most important tool is his body language, he says.

A man you believe

But using words he does masterfully. The conversation between Bobby Sands and a priest in "Hunger" has gone down in film history - 17 minutes verbal exchange without a cut. In David Cronenberg's "A Dangerous Method" (2011), he indulges as a psychologist Carl Jung in intellectual escapades with Sigmund Freud, - and sadomasochistic escapes with his patient. Apart from art house films the man treats himself with maverick roles but also blockbusters like "X-Men" (2011). Also in 2012 Fassbender is on every channel, alongside to Steven Soderbergh's action thriller "Haywire" in March, in August hits Ridley Scott's "Alien" successor "Prometheus" the theatres, a vampire film by Jim Jarmusch is in progress. In addition, Fassbender works with his production company on his own projects - perhaps as a director. Vieles spricht für das bodenständige Ausnahmetalent, aber Steve McQueen hat am besten formuliert, was es genau ist: „Weil ich ihm glaube, was er spielt.“ There are a lot of aspects in favour of this down-to-earth exceptional talent, but Steve McQueen has expressed best what that is exactly: "Because I believe him, what he does"


DIANA AUST FOR ARTE MAGAZINE 03/2012