Facebook Twitter Instagram
    • Services
    • Aircheck for Actors
    • Demo Reels
    • Audition Prep/Self-Tape Reader
    • Mailing Labels
    • Contribute
    • Industry Links
    • Advertise
    Daily Actor
    • Acting Tips
      • Actors on Acting
      • Advice Columns
      • Acting Quotes
      • Audition Tapes
      • How To Become An Actor
      • How to Memorize Lines
    • Monologues
      • Monologues from Plays
      • Monologues from Movies
      • Monologues from Musicals
      • Comedic Monologues
      • Dramatic Monologues
      • One Minute Monologues
      • Monologues for Women
      • Monologues for Men
      • Monologues for Teens
      • Monologues for Kids
      • All Monologues
    • Acting Resources
      • Acting Resume
        • Acting Resume Template
      • Acting Classes
        • Los Angeles Acting Classes
        • Las Vegas Acting Classes
        • San Diego Acting Classes
      • Acting Schools and Colleges
        • Los Angeles
        • New York
        • BFA Acting Schools
      • Casting Websites
      • Headshot Photographers
        • Los Angeles
        • New York City
        • Headshot Printing
      • Acting Techniques
        • What is Method Acting?
      • Stage Directions
      • Demo Reels: Everything You Need to Know
    • Interviews
      Featured
      Casting Director Interview - Brett Benner and Debby Romano

      Interview: Casting Directors Brett Benner and Debby Romano Talk ‘Shrinking’, Finding Actors and More

      Recent
      Casting Director Interview - Brett Benner and Debby Romano

      Interview: Casting Directors Brett Benner and Debby Romano Talk ‘Shrinking’, Finding Actors and More

      March 6, 2023
      Jeremy Davis Olaf in Frozen Interview

      Interview: Jeremy Davis on Playing Olaf in ‘Frozen’, Costume Mishaps and Making the Role His Own

      January 19, 2023
      Casting Director Kim Coleman Interview

      Interview: Casting Director Kim Coleman on ‘Five Days at Memorial’, Self-Tape Tips and Portraying Real People

      January 11, 2023
    • Actor Blogs
    • Reviews
      • Movies
      • Theater
      • Books
      • Products
    • Actor Services
      • Airchecks
      • Demo Reels
      • Website Design
      • Mailing Labels
    Daily Actor
    Home » Actors on Acting » Michael Fassbender on Finding a Character: “If I can make them logical to myself, then I apply them, and that’s really it”
    Actors on Acting

    Michael Fassbender on Finding a Character: “If I can make them logical to myself, then I apply them, and that’s really it”

    Chris McKittrickBy Chris McKittrickJanuary 11, 2017Updated:July 7, 2020No Comments3 Mins Read
    Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email

    michael-fassbender

    Michael Fassbender has been nominated for two Oscars, and it’s fair to speculate that those two nominations are just the first two of many. While Fassbender is a go-to actor for almost anything — he’s done blockbusters (the X-Men movies), dramas (Shame), quirky indies (Frank) and even Shakespeare (Macbeth) — for the first seven years of his career he struggled to find work. Speaking with The Guardian, Fassbender spoke about his parents’ concern about his action aspirations and why he reject the idea that he is an “intelligent actor.”

    Fassbender reveals that his parents really pushed him to go to pursue higher education, but he refuses. “They wanted me to go to university, because they were of that generation when anybody who went to university had security and got a good job. They said, ‘Go to university first’, and I was like, ‘No, I’m not going to waste time and money, I need to do this now.’”

    What changed their minds was when Fassbender developed and directed a stage production of Reservoir Dogs. He continues, “They saw me put on that play and they thought, ‘Shit, he’s serious.’ When they saw that I’d made up my mind, they knew that’s what I was going to do, and I have to say they supported me immediately after that.” Curiously, Fassbender would later work with Reservoir Dogs filmmaker Quentin Tarantino in Inglourious Basterds.

    Though Fassbender had some early success, including a role on the TV mini-series Band of Brothers, he barely worked in the following two years while living in Los Angeles. Nonetheless, though he was able to turn his career around he doesn’t see those two years as completely negative. He explains, “There are a lot of good actors who are still in that position at 40. Bundles of them. I was so f—ing lucky. I thought, I’ll just keep knocking on the door – and when the opportunity comes, I’m going to take it.”

    Although people refer to him as an “intelligent” actor, Fassbender rejects the label. He says, “I’m definitely not in the intelligent bracket. I mean, I was never academically smart. I don’t really consider myself intelligent. I just have a good – if I have, I don’t know – intuition. I’m a very intuitive person, and I guess I think very simply.”

    Fassbender clarifies what he means by continuing, “Well, I just think, ‘Oh, the character might do something like that because he has an inferiority complex, so therefore he’s sadistic towards somebody else’, or whatever. That’s a very crude example, but I just keep things very simple. If I can make them logical to myself, then I apply them, and that’s really it. But there are a lot of very intelligent actors out there, I would say. I just think maybe what comes across as unintelligent is, we end up talking about ourselves an awful lot. And that’s sort of boring and unintelligent and uninteresting. That is the danger of the job, because it’s a lot of thinking about a character, and thinking about yourself, and so one can fall into that trap pretty quickly.”

    Related

    Previous ArticleFelicity Jones on How She Finds Inspiration For Her Characters
    Next Article Viggo Mortensen on How He Became an Actor

    Related Posts

    Jeremy Strong in Armageddon Time

    Jeremy Strong: “There’s infinite ways really to play any part. So you have to discover what feels necessary”

    March 14, 2023
    Christina Ricci

    How Christina Ricci Chooses Her Characters and Why She Loves ‘Yellowjackets’

    March 9, 2023
    Casting Director Interview - Brett Benner and Debby Romano

    Interview: Casting Directors Brett Benner and Debby Romano Talk ‘Shrinking’, Finding Actors and More

    March 6, 2023
    Add A Comment

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

    Daily Actor Facebook Daily Actor Twitter Daily Actor Instagram Daily Actor Pinterest Daily Actor YouTube Page
    Popular Pages
    Become An Actor | Acting Tips | Acting Quotes
    Acting Resume | Resume Template
    Headshot Photographers
    Los Angeles | New York
    Print Your Headshots
    Acting Schools & Colleges
    Los Angeles | New York
    Monologues
    Movies | Plays | Comedic | Dramatic
    Men | Women | Teens | Kids
    • Contact
    • About
    • Advertise
    • Resource Listings
    • Write A Column
    • Contribute
    • Privacy Policy

    Disclaimer: Daily Actor at times uses affiliate links to sites like Amazon.com, streaming services, and others. Affiliate links provides compensation to Daily Actor which helps us remain online, giving you the resources and information actors like you are looking for.

    © 2023 Daily Actor

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.