Michael Fassbender (14 page)

Even better was the news that came in early April, a few weeks into filming. Leasi Andrews had asked a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to dismiss her petition and claims.

E
arlier in the year Michael had been contacted by the controversial director of
Crash, eXistenZ
and
Eastern Promises
, David Cronenberg. Over lunch at his home in Toronto, he discussed his new film and the role he had in mind for Michael, who was immediately intrigued. The movie, which centred on the birth of psychoanalysis, was to be scripted by Christopher Hampton from his play
The Talking Cure,
itself an adaptation from the book
A Most Dangerous Method
by John Kerr.

The story revolved around the friendship and rivalry of psychoanalysis’ two foremost practitioners, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. In the beginning Jung, the younger of the two, idolises Freud and the pioneering work he has
done in this new field. He is thrilled to meet him and even withstands his patronising air but, as his confidence grows and his own work develops, Jung begins to feel that his experiments in dream analysis are a step up from Freud’s obsession with sex. The two men cannot agree, yet ironically it is Jung who is experiencing for real the type of behaviour that Freud is known to analyse.

When an 18-year-old Russian girl, Sabina Spielrein, is admitted with severe hysteria to the Swiss hospital where Jung works, he takes a keen interest in her. She tells him that she is ‘vile and filthy and corrupt’ before finally confessing that she found the spanking that her father gave her as a child to be thrilling, and that she longs to be spanked again. At first Jung is very professional and proper in his approach to treating her, using Freud’s analytical methods, but the sexual tension between them yawns open after a conversation Jung has with fellow psychiatrist Otto Gross, who is joyously amoral and whose motto is ‘Never repress anything’. Jung – growing increasingly distant from his pregnant wife – begins a sado-masochistic affair with Sabina and, in so doing, puts even more strain on his relationship with a disapproving Freud.

With filming on
Jane Eyre
wrapped by mid-May, Michael focused on reading the script for
A Dangerous Method
. He had been offered the role of Jung, which he had accepted, alongside Viggo Mortensen as Freud and Keira Knightley as Sabina. As was his practice, Michael
read the script over and over again and continued to do so throughout filming, which began in mid-June.

The film has become particularly known for the scene in which Jung spanks Sabina. It was something that both actors were worried about and Keira had initially turned down the role because of it. But in their phone call Cronenberg was so keen to keep her on board that he offered to cut the scene. Keira then had second thoughts because she realised how important it was to the piece and she agreed to do it. ‘He [Cronenberg] said he didn’t want the scenes to be sexy or voyeuristic. He wanted them to be clinical and a complete exploration of what she was feeling,’ said Keira. ‘So we kind of came to an agreement with Michael as well – because he had questions about the scene. I wanted it to be as shocking as possible without going over the top.’

But Michael was relieved to find that, despite such deep and dark human yearnings and complex psychoanalytical issues, there was also humour to be found in the script. ‘I found the script funny,’ he told the Scottish TV channel STV. ‘When I was rehearsing with Viggo, I said, “This is funny, right?” and so we did explore that side of it as well as the highbrow stuff, the world of academia and psychoanalysis, to find those moments of humour. I think the idea that makes Jung really interesting for me was that he said, “How can I diagnose the patient if I don’t experience what the patient is experiencing?” This encompasses the passion that he had.’

The bond between Jung and Sabina becomes very strong after he helps to release her inner demons. ‘Before, she found her needs dirty or something she needed to hide. It wasn’t socially acceptable for a woman to be feeling those things,’ explained Michael. ‘That she was such an intelligent person intrigued him even more. He also feels he’s really fulfilling her desires by spanking her. I think he’s turned on by her getting turned on.

‘She arrives as this hysteric and Jung is very much the doctor who’s in control. By the end of the film, though, when he has somewhat unravelled, the roles have sort of reversed. She’s become an analyst in her own right, which is such a cool thing, that someone can come in as a patient and leave as a doctor.’

When it came to filming the spanking scene, both Michael and Keira had a couple of vodka shots to steady their nerves. With the camera placed in front of them, Michael actually hit a cushion to one side of Keira as he stood behind her. He was nervous about getting his aim right. ‘It’s always embarrassing and awkward when you do stuff like that. You try to keep the atmosphere light,’ he recalled. ‘I didn’t want to actually hit her so I was concentrating on hitting the mark and not her.’

Accidentally being hit was also on Keira’s mind. ‘We were both very nervous about those scenes,’ she said. ‘When we shot them I said to Michael, “If you touch me, I’m going to kill you.” He said, “Keira, you’re tied to the bed at the moment. I don’t think you’re in any position to say that!”’

Michael was full of praise for Keira for being brave and throwing herself into it. ‘She took on board the physicality and how it manifests itself and all credit to her because she was so brave and ready and prepared. We were four days ahead after week one because David had put aside a section of time for those tricky scenes. But she was a real pleasure to work with – she was an absolute pro.’

After they had successfully finished the spanking scene the pair of them celebrated with a couple of glasses of champagne. ‘You can count on Michael to buy a bottle of champagne when one is required,’ said Keira. ‘The vodka and champagne is a good combination.’ As a parting gift she gave Michael a spanking paddle on which she had written, ‘I wouldn’t have been spanked by anyone but you. Lots of love, Keira.’

Viggo Mortensen was taken aback when he first started filming his scenes with Michael. As he recalled on
The Late Show With David Letterman
, ‘Michael is a very physical guy and he wanted to be kind of leaping at me in our scenes. So he did this thing before every shot where he would hop on one foot, like he had a skipping rope. And he wanted this lean angry look – an intense stare – so he would cover one eye with his hand while he was hopping. Keira was fine with it and would just look away but I didn’t know what to make of it. He would take his hand away from his eye at the last minute before we did a scene and he would stare at me almost cross-eyed.

‘There was one scene where we were on a sailing boat – the one time I was really worried. I’m sitting down and he was standing, steering and working the sail, and he starts jumping again. And I’m thinking, “He’s going to put a hole right in the bottom of the boat.” It was really scary.’

The film’s producer, Jeremy Thomas, was surprised to see Michael reading the script over and over again during filming, something he had never seen an actor do before. Michael described the process as being one of his ‘secret weapons’ when it came to acting. It enabled him to find new nuances to plot and character and helped him to relax and be more comfortable with the words when it came to filming.

Michael also turned to his sister Catherine – now a neuropsychologist specialising in ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) in children at UC Davis – to understand more about psychology. Catherine was a fan of Jung and loved the idea that her brother was portraying him. ‘Even though my sister is scientific, she is of that belief that there are a lot of unanswered things out there that science hasn’t yet been able to explain, or perhaps never will,’ said Michael, ‘so I think she likes that mystic element to Jung.’

He also turned to YouTube again to watch footage of Jung as an older man. But it was when Michael put on the spectacles and costume of his character – the waistcoat, moustache, stiff collar, side parting – that he really felt the
part. ‘There was a real elegance about the time and it always helps when you put on a costume,’ he explained. ‘You do all your homework at home and then slowly you put on the shoes that the character wears, and all the intricate little things, like a pocket watch. It helps to give you that certain way of sort of holding yourself, and I love all that.

‘Jung and Freud were pioneers. They were trying to understand how we function and what separates us from animals, and with certain things ask, “Are we that far apart from animals?” Freud would say that we do respond because of our physicality and our relationship to our physicality.

‘These were the first guys talking about penises and vaginas and the anus and the mouth, about sexuality and our primal urges, and how these things will affect us in our adult lives and how we always carry that around with us and how they are there and should be recognised and explored, otherwise they can run amok – otherwise madness can ensue and violence and all sorts of primal things.’

Michael and Viggo also got the chance to look at the written correspondence between the two men and they were struck by how beautiful the handwriting was. It was apparent that the art of letter writing was a very important weapon and tool in those days. The power of the language they used and the eloquent way it was expressed would be a vital way of putting an argument
across and anyone in the academic field lacking in this skill would be at a serious disadvantage.

Shooting took place in Cologne, the Bodensee (Lake Constance) and Vienna – where Freud had lived for many years – across eight weeks. The director, so provocative in his films, was bemused by Michael’s seemingly permanent upbeat and happy nature. ‘He’s so perky, it drives you crazy,’ he said. ‘One day I found him out in the sun in his costume and make-up, with this big smile. I said, “Michael, why are you smiling like that?” He said, “I don’t know… life.” I said, “It’s so irritating that you’re happy all the time.”’

For Michael, working with Cronenberg proved to be a memorable and fascinating experience. ‘He’s a director who is interested in scratching [below] the surface,’ he told
Total Film
. ‘We live in this civilised society where we’re supposed to behave in certain ways and there’s an etiquette at play. What happens when you peel back the covers and look underneath and how do we actually deal with each other in practical terms as opposed to theoretically? So when there’s a curiosity in a director like that, you know it’s going to be interesting, that the characters are going to be more complex and it’s going to be a really intelligent introspection.’

Working on the film and researching Jung, Freud and the world of psychoanalysis did make Michael think about what makes people, happy, sad or just content with their lives. ‘If you look at our society now it’s very much
obsessed with the “I’” – how can I become more successful? How can I become more charming? How do I get ahead in life? I think it’s gone to the extreme and I think we need to think more about what we can do collectively and focus on those around us more. And I think happiness can lie there as much as it can through self-introspection.’

On the publicity trail for
A Dangerous Method
, Keira became convinced that the English were obsessed with spanking. ‘People liked the spanking an awful lot,’ she told
Interview
magazine. ‘But it’s weird. When we were in Venice, I didn’t get asked about it once in however many days we were there. And then in Toronto I got asked about it a little bit more. But in England, it was pretty much the only thing I got asked about.’

In between his hectic film schedule Michael found time to voice the main character of Logan in the third video game in the
Fable
series of role-playing adventures in which the player/character struggles to overthrow the King of Albion by forming alliances and building support for a revolution.
Fable III
was set 50 years on from the previous instalment, with the monarch’s son, Logan, now ruling the Kingdom of Albion. The game included a star cast of voice talents including Ben Kingsley, Stephen Fry, Simon Pegg, Zoe Wanamaker and John Cleese. It was released on 29 October 2010.

In the mean time Michael, who had made a name for himself from a string of interesting independent films
that had won him acclaim and awards, was now being offered big studio pictures. And the one he settled on was to reach a huge worldwide audience and fully establish him as a star.

A
lthough Michael was more of a
Beano
and
Dandy
reader as a boy than a fan of superhero comics, he did think he was Superman and had fantasised over Wonder Woman, so maybe his next choice wasn’t so unusual. As worldwide movie franchises went they didn’t come much bigger than this. The four previous
X-Men
movies –
X-Men
,
X-2, X-Men: The Last Stand
and
X-Men
Origins: Wolverine
– had been hugely successful and he had enjoyed watching them.

The stories were set in a world of ordinary humans and mutants with strong and strange special powers, which are feared by the rest of the citizens. When a US senator hounds the mutants and wants them to register with the
government in order to protect others, it causes friction and resentment. Several mutants find solace at Professor Charles Xavier’s school, which teaches them how to harness their special powers. And so we have the likes of Jean Grey, who has telekinetic and telepathic skills, Storm, who can manipulate weather disturbances, Cyclops, whose eyes release energy blasts, and Wolverine, who has healing powers. But danger looms when fellow mutant Magneto, who can control magnetic fields that manipulate metal, concocts a plan to turn the world’s leaders into mutants at a special UN gathering. Xavier forms a crack team of mutants called The X-Men to fight Magneto and his fellow rebels.

Michael liked that the stories were grounded on such enduring social and psychological issues as ostracism, conflict, fear and resentment. He was impressed by the script for the new movie,
X-Men: First Class
, which was a prequel explaining how Magneto and Xavier first met and became friends before falling out. He immersed himself in reading
X-Men
comic-book stories and thought that there was more depth and characterisation to them than many others of the genre.

He was also a fan of the movie’s British director Matthew Vaughn, who had previously directed the superhero comedy
Kick-Ass
. He was also aware of the benefits of a blockbuster movie reaching a wide audience, raising his profile and giving him more control over his career. ‘I’ve been around for a while and I’ve had to graft
to get to the position I’m in, and I wouldn’t change a bit of that. If it’s a success, it allots me more power, which allows me to control my own career more,’ he said.

The story for
X-Men: First Class
was described by Vaughn as ‘
X–Men
meets the Cuban missile crisis meets James Bond.’ It begins at a German concentration camp in Poland during World War II when young Erik Lensherr is separated from his parents by Nazi guards. In his frustration and anger he bends a metal gate without touching it, using magnetic power. Nazi scientist Sebastian Shaw, who has observed this through a window, calls Erik up to see him. Placing a metal coin on a desk, he orders him to use his power to move it. When Erik cannot, Shaw shoots and kills his mother in front of him. His rage sends his power out of control, wrecking the room and killing two guards. A delighted Shaw is determined to harness the boy’s power.

The story then jumps to 1962 when Erik is still trying to track down Shaw to get his revenge. When a banker refuses to help, Erik shows just how ruthless he has become, by using his mind’s power to rip a metal filling from the terrified man’s mouth. It gets him talking and Erik manages to trace a bar of gold to Shaw’s address in Argentina. Meanwhile, Shaw and a bunch of mutants with trained super powers are planning to start a world war. CIA agent Moira MacTaggart seeks the help of Oxford University graduate Charles Xavier, who is publishing his thesis on mutation.

The telepathic and telekinetic Xavier uses his power to discover that Shaw – who is a mutant himself – wants to manipulate the Cuban missile crisis to start a nuclear war between the US and Russia in order to wipe out all normal humans. Xavier then starts to train a team of mutants at his mansion home, turning them into an elite fighting force to stop them. In one spectacular scene, Erik raises a nuclear submarine out of the sea using his magnetic mind control.

Towards the end of the movie, an increasingly dangerous Erik admits that he agrees with Shaw that the only way for mutants to live a hassle-free life is to destroy humans. From now on he will be known as Magneto. We then see him wearing a cool-looking helmet to underline his new alter ego, which sets things up nicely for the next movie in the series or, as Michael mischievously put it, ‘I’ve got the purple helmet and I’m ready for action.’

Michael was cast as Lensherr/Magneto in the role previously played by Sir Ian McKellen, while James McAvoy, with whom Michael had worked on
Band of Brothers
and who had gone on to star in
Atonement
and
The Last King of Scotland
, took Patrick Stewart’s place as a young Xavier. Michael initially looked to base his portrayal on McKellen as a younger man but Vaughn wasn’t keen on the idea so he delved into the comic books and found a wealth of material to draw on. ‘Erik speaks German, goes to a concentration camp in Poland, ends up in Eastern Europe and then goes off to Israel. There’s so
much there and I tried to approach it freshly from the source material,’ he explained. ‘I wanted to show there is a massive well of history in this character. He is a very damaged individual.’

Michael was much more intrigued by this aspect of Erik than he was by his super power and he liked the idea of the blurring of the line between villain and hero. ‘That’s way more interesting than just some guy, some baddie, who breezes though an action film. It adds a whole new dimension to the idea of a villain,’ he said. And he found that he shared some of Erik’s views on society and was aware of the resonance that the film’s message had today.

‘It was very clear to me what Magneto’s opinions were in terms of how much humanity can be trusted,’ he said. ‘And listen, I love people, I believe we all need each other, that’s the essential thing for me in life. In the world it gets lost nowadays when people are all about the “I” – how can I become successful? How can I get ahead? We’re obsessed about the individual as opposed to working together. And it does seem to be a human trait that, when we see something we’re afraid of, we try to destroy it rather than understand it.’

Michael was impressed by the sophistication of the
X-Men
comic-book stories. ‘You can have a fantastical world around it but at the core there’s the really interesting topic of racism and prejudice and people feeling like outsiders,’ he told the
Sunday Times
. ‘You’ve got the civil-rights movement at the time we set this film in. You’ve got all
these elements of racism and prejudice and fear of the unknown, and the fear of something within and how society reacts to those things.’

Alongside Michael in the cast were Nicholas Hoult as Beast, Jennifer Lawrence as Raven, January Jones as Emma Frost, Jason Flemyng as the demonic Azazel, Lucas Till as Havoc and Zoë Kravitz as Wings. Most of them, including Michael, were signed up for two further
X-Men
films.

Michael enjoyed the experience of working with Matthew Vaughn. ‘He’s great because he makes films as a fan,’ he told
Total Film
. ‘There’s something like a
nine-year
-old boy in him when he’s making a film. He allows the characters to drive the plot and the plot to drive the action, as opposed to action driving the film and threading in some sort of a plot.’

Michael tried to take the edge off his Irish accent but Matthew told him not to, explaining that the reason that Sean Connery was the best James Bond was that he had a quirk to his accent and it wasn’t straight English. ‘I was like, “Great! I can make Magneto Irish!”’ Michael joked with the
Irish Voice
. ‘He was in hiding in Cork or Kerry for a couple of years after the war. That’s where we sort of went with it.’

The film’s scriptwriter, Simon Kinberg, thought Michael perfectly captured the almost dual personality of Eric Lehnsherr and his conflicting emotions. ‘Because Michael is such an interesting actor, he’ll never be “full-on” anything. He’ll have a villainous side and he’ll have a
sympathetic human side you’ll be able to relate to but you’ll also be afraid of him.’

Having read all the X-Men stories, Michael thought that the relationship between Magneto and Xavier was fascinating. He likened it to two great political leaders, who are enemies but able to sit down and have lunch together and be very amiable towards each other.

Prior to casting, Michael screentested with James McAvoy and the two found they had a great rapport. As James recalled, ‘It was very important that the actors playing Xavier and Magneto, who are at the emotional core of the story, got on together and, when we met up, we hit it off and I think we both thought, “Please, God, let it be us two.” We share a similar sense of humour and we knew we could push things a bit and not get too serious. We had a great old time.’

They did that. In fact, some of their high jinks were a cause of concern to the director once filming began at Pinewood Studios. One of their favourite games during breaks was to race to a golf buggy that was used for transporting cast to and fro. Michael usually beat James to it but one day James got there first and took the wheel as Michael jumped in the back. Despite it only going at 12mph, James lost control as they drove into a caravan park and crashed into a Lexus car. James tumbled out and Michael went flying over the back seat, banged his head on the steering wheel and ended up in the driver’s seat and so got the blame!

A dazed James, who had flown 10 feet, stood up and looked at Michael in the driving seat, laughing madly. As some of the crew gathered around, shaking their heads, Michael simply ran off. James proved to be unhurt but Michael cut his left shin, which has left him with a permanent scar. ‘It’s my little memento!’ he said, laughing.

There were many times when they joked that playing superheroes and villains seemed an odd thing for grown men to do but, in truth, James greatly admired the way Michael brought gravitas to his role. ‘No matter how much at times we were thinking, “This is silly as shit,” Michael’s got the ability and the presence of mind and the intelligence to be able to elevate it,’ he said, ‘and that was immediately evident from the first moment we sat down and started talking. I think he’s really at home with who he is and that’s not something that every actor has. He has self-possession in bucketloads and that lends itself to screen presence. While he’s on screen, he is in command. He is him.’

On a more relaxed level, Jason Flemyng, who had starred in
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
and
Snatch
, both produced by Matthew Vaughn, invited the cast to his place for dinner. Michael, no mean cook himself, having helped his chef father at the family restaurant, was impressed with the slow-roasted pork belly Jason served up. ‘It was excellent,’ he recalled. ‘I was supposed to reciprocate but never did.’

During the making of the film, Michael began a romance with one of his co-stars, 22-year-old Zoe Kravitz – the daughter of singer and musician Lenny Kravitz and actress Lisa Bonet – who played Angel Salvadore. But, intensely private as ever, he refused to confirm or deny it when asked by reporters. ‘My private life is private,’ he told the
Guardian
. ‘If I do a film, how can I expect the audience to follow me if they’re thinking, “He goes out with this person” and, “He has this for breakfast”? It’s a disadvantage.’

On the subject of increased celebrity and public recognition in the streets following
X-Men
exposure, he was typically level headed. ‘I don’t think about it too much. I still go about doing my everyday things like I did ten years ago. I don’t want to change that. I’m in a privileged position.’

When a reporter from the
Irish Examiner
asked him how difficult it was to go from a small-budget art-house movie like
Hunger
to the blockbuster of
X-Men,
he referred back to his schooldays at St Brendan’s. ‘It’s not that difficult, it’s just a very different mindset you have to get into, i.e. that of a ten-year-old boy, and have fun with it and not take yourself too seriously. I used to skive off school at St Brendan’s sometimes, with a friend of mine, Ernest Johnson, and whenever I’d get nervous about it, he’d say, “What’ll it matter in a hundred years’ time?” That’s my attitude to blockbusters like this.’

But that wasn’t the only time when his past would
influence the present. Earlier in the shoot he had received the promised script of Steve McQueen’s new movie. And it was a shocker.