Michael Fassbender

Michael Fassbender: biography

Michael Fassbender is an Irish theater and movie actor and producer. Fassbender often works with a director Steve МcQueen, with whom they established a great tandem: Michael played roles in controversial movies of McQueen - ''Shame", "Hunger" and "12 Years a Slave". Among the mass audience, Michael Fassbender is popular for his roles in the franchise of the movies "X-men" by Marvel’s comics, where the actor performed the character of a young antihero Magneto.

Michael Fassbender was born on the 2nd of April, 1977 in a German town Heidelberg. His father was of German origin and his mother was born in Northern Ireland. Michael has an elder sister Catherine.

When Michael Fassbender turned 2 years, his family moved to Ireland. While studying at the common school little Michael attended additional guitar, piano and accordion classes. Michael's father was a talented master chef, at the end of 80-s Fassbender Sr. opened his own restaurant in the South of Ireland. Since childhood parents taught their children to work and respect the labor, that's why Fassbender Jr. had to work partly as a waiter and a handyman in the family business. And now the actor jokes that he is ready to finish his career and open his own restaurant as he is descended from a family of the restaurateur. But in young years Michael chose for himself another profession of an actor.

When a teenager Michael Fassbender was seriously involved in hard rock music and created a musical band in which he was playing the guitar. In 1992 Michael saw the picture "Reservoir Dogs" and it impressed him so much, that he decided to stage a play. His friends supported his idea and in some months an amateur group performed in the clubs of Killarney.

In 1993 Fassbender performed as an actor at the stage of the city theater. A young man played a small role, but it was enough for him to define exactly with his future job.

By words of Michael Fassbender at the age of 19, he had the most complicated period in his life. A young man entered Drama Centre London school and he had to rent a cold slum to work and to study at the same time. In a couple of years, Michael gave up his studies and went on tour with the Oxford Stage Company where he performed in the play "Three Sisters".

Movies

The beginning of Michael Fassbender's career can't be called successful. His attractive Irish appearance, hypnotizing look, a broad smile for which later he got a nickname of "the shark" and tall height of 183 cm turned out not to be in demand. Since 2001 Michael received episodic roles in the series "Band of Brothers", "Hearts and Bones", "Holby City", "Hex" and some others. The series "Band of Brothers" was rather successful, it received two prestigious awards and the actor thought that it was his finest hour. Michael set off to Los Angeles, but he failed two auditions and had to return to London.

Fortune favored the actor in 2006 when Fassbender got a role in the movie "300" directed by Zack Snyder. The audience remembered Stelios performed by Michael with a tanned fine body. For this role, Fassbender was practicing sport during 4 hours each day for 10 weeks.

The same year he enriched his actor's portfolio with another significant movie - a drama "Angel" in which he presented his talent as a dramatic actor.

In 2008 actor received the leading role in the project "Hunger", which demanded great physical and psychological efforts. Michael performed a character of the leader of Irish Republicans – Bobby Sands who went on a death-fast hunger strike, which lasted for 66 days. Michael studied the biography of his character in detail and began to observe a strict diet. At the beginning of the shootings, he lost his weight up to 57 kilos - this was the weight of Bobby Sands. For this movie, Michael Fassbender got BAFTA Awards.

In 2009 two movies featuring Michael Fassbender - "Fish Tank" (a character of Connor) and "Inglourious Basterds" (a role of Archie Hicox) were presented in Cannes. After that directors swamped Michael with offers and requests. He became famous, his dream came true.

Michael Fassbender owns DMC Film production company which was founded in 2011. In 2011 the company got its first award at BAFTA Festival for a short-length movie "Pitch Black Heist" featuring Michael in the leading role. The movie "Slow West" awarded the jury prize at Sundance Film Festival.

Movies "Macbeth" and "Trespass Against Us" were produced in cooperation with other production companies.

Fassbender is still famous as an actor. "Jane Eyre", "A Dangerous Method", "Prometheus" were among his works and there was a number of other pictures in acting biography of Fassbender in the period from 2011 till 2013.

In 2001 actor acted in the super-hero action movie "X: First Class" directed by Matthew Vaughn. The movie became the beginning of a new trilogy about the struggle of human and mutants based on the same-name comics. "X: First Class" relaunched the universe of "X-men" by rejuvenating the main heroes and antiheroes, which were already seen by the audience in the movies about a mutant Wolverine.

Michael Fassbender played a role of Erick Lehnsherr, at first a super-hero, then an antihero Magneto, who possessed special abilities to handle any metal objects. James McAvoy took the part of Eric's friend - a telepath and telekinetic Charles Xavier.

A movie tells a story about the formation of the heroes, the grown-up versions of which are known to any of the comics based movies' fans. At first, Erick and Charles assemble a team of people with mutants' superpowers and then they don't find agreement with each other: whether the mutants should hide and maintain peace with people or should they claim about themselves and won back their relying rights. This conflict results in the major confrontation of the universe of "X-men".

The movie was memorable and spectacular not only because of the fantastic fight scenes but also for its charismatic heroes. The movie "X-men" raised complex social issues: the problem of intolerance for what is different, the problem of inequality and inequity of social groups.

The same year 2011 Fassbender played a leading role in a drama by Steven McQueen. For his role of Brendon Sullivan in movie "Shame" actor won Volpi Cup for Best Actor. In total, this picture was nominated in 20 different categories for various Awards and won 7 of them. A scandalous movie told about the life of a sexoholic and sex addict. Critics noted the schematic tendency of the drama's personages, whose characters director sacrificed for an idea. Though, this controversial movie was met positively by the majority of critics.

In 2012 actor appeared in the science-fiction blockbuster "Prometheus". The action takes place in the movie universe of the aliens, but the plot is not directly connected with these aliens. Michael played a character of the android.

His powerful character in the movie "12 Years a Slave" brought him a long-awaited nomination for Academic Awards in 2014 but unfortunately, he didn't receive the desired statuette. Michael tells that awards are the last thing he cares about.

The actor continues to film in next parts of the movie "X-men". In 2014 a movie "X-Men: Days of Future Past" was released, in which Fassbender returned to Magento’s role. Hugh Jackman, who played the leading role in the previous parts, also took part in this franchise movie about Wolverine. In "X-men" Jackman played a secondary role.

Within the promo tour of the movie "X-men", the actors of the leading roles visited Russia. During this tour, Michael Fassbender attended a popular show "Evening Urgant". In a video from 21st of May, 2014 Fassbender and Urgant discussed red-haired people, motorcycle rides and glasses of virtual reality.

In 2015 Fassbender performed the character of Steve Jobs in the same-name movie. For his role of Jobs Fassbender was nominated for the Golden Globe, Academic Awards, BAFTA and SAG Awards but unfortunately, he didn't win any awards.

Personal life

The actor doesn't have an account on Instagram. An account with the biggest number of followers registered under the name of the actor comprises 45 thousand followers. It's frankly stated in the description that it's just a fan page.

Personal life of Michael Fassbender is not of public knowledge.

There were many vibrant women in actor’s life, among them – an actress Zoe Kravitz (a daughter of legendary Lenni Kravitz ). Lovers got acquainted on the movie set of "X-men". Zoe was 11 years younger than Michael, but age difference didn’t prevent them from being involved in a love affair. Actually, a couple broke up in a year. Michael explained their separation by specificities of actor’s profession.

Sometime later Fassbender got acquainted with an American actress Nicole Beharie, this woman was his partner in the movie "Shame". Their relationship lasted for two years.

His next passion was Louise Hazel – a British Olympic athlete. It was noted in the press that she resembled Michael's previous women by her appearance - she had a perfect body, tanned skin, and dark curly hair. But their relations didn't last for long.

A model and actress Mãdãlina Ghenea left actor Gerard Butler and stayed with Fassbender for 9 months.

After the release of the movie "12 Years a Slave" there were gossips about the love affair of Fassbender and Lupita Nyong'o.

A Sweden actress Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender met each other on the movie set of "The Light Between Oceans". In September 2014 young people were captured together during their surfing class in Sydney. A year later there appeared rumors about their separation, as the actors attended the same events but kept separately from each other.

On the 29th of February of 2016, Alicia Vikander received Academic Awards for Best Supporting Role in the movie "The Danish Girl". Michael was sitting next to her and at the happiest moment, Alicia gave him a kiss.

In July of 2016 lovers went on tour together to present the movie, due to which they got acquainted.

In March of 2017, Western tabloids announced that Fassbender separated with Alicia Vikander. At the after-party of Academic Awards, an actress was seen on her own.

Actors don't comment on their possible separation but there have been rumors about their break-up during long months.

In May 2017 Michael and Alicia were captured by paparazzi walking together, what really confused their fans and journalists and totally contradicted the theory about their break-up.

In October 2017 Mass Media reported that Vikander and Fassbender got married secretly in Ibiza. Young people were captured on the island with wedding rings. One of these evenings a couple gathered their closest friends at the restaurant.

Michael Fassbender at present

In 2016 a sequel to the comics-blockbuster "X-Men: Apocalypse" came on the screen. This follow-up of the popular trilogy got rather controversial feedbacks from the critics. "Time" magazine put this picture in the first place of the Worst Movies of 2016.

Recently, Michael Fassbender has expended his activities as a producer. In 2016 Fassbender’s DMC FILM production company worked on the movie "Assassin’s Greed". The plot is based on a series of games "Assassin’s Creed" and relates to the confrontation of assassins and Templars which had passed through centuries. The action of this movie takes places in two epochs and two different countries at the same time: in the 15th century in Spain and in the 21-st century in the USA. In Russia, the film was premiered on the 5th of January, 2017.

In May 2017 there was a premiere of a science-fiction movie "Alien: Covenant" directed by Ridley Scott. A movie universe of the Alien is distinguished by its complicated associations between the movies. At the same time this movie – is a second prequel to the classic movies about Aliens and an indirect sequel to "Prometheus".

This picture presents a story of a crew of the spaceship "Covenant" who discovers a new planet which at first sight seems to be a paradise but later turns out to be a dangerous place.

Michael Fassbender played a role of the only resident of a terrible planet – an android David, whose character he had already acted in a blockbuster "Prometheus".

Katherine Waterston, Noomi Rapace, and James Franko performed other leading roles in this picture.

The premiere of the movie "The Snowman" - a screen adaptation of the popular novel by a Norwegian writer Jo Nesbø was set for October 2017. This movie was directed by Tomas Alfredson. Fassbender performed the leading role of the detective, who investigates a series of murders with the snowmen constantly left at the crime scene.

Filmography

• "Hears and Bones"
• "Hey"
• "Angel"
• "300"
• "Hunger"
• "Fish Tank"
• "Jane Eyre"
• "The Counselor"
• "Macbeth"
• "Steve Jobs"
• "Assassin’s Creed"
• "X-men"
• "Shame"
• "12 Years a Slave"
• "Prometheus"

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