Fassbender is getting Oscar buzz again, for 2 movies he has coming out in 2015: “Macbeth” and “Steve Jobs”

Sep 16, 2015 13:34 GMT  ·  By

Michael Fassbender got seriously burned during the 2012 awards season, when he emerged as a favorite for a Best Actor nomination at the Oscars with his role in “Shame,” campaigned hard for it and then failed to get it. Frustrated, he even publicly said he would never campaign for an Oscar again, no matter what his people advised him.

Three years later, Fassbender is back on the trail, but in a more subtle mode. He has 3 movies opening in the second half of 2015, with 2 of them already getting plenty of awards buzz, “Macbeth” and “Steve Jobs.”

One is a Shakespearean masterpiece seeing him opposite the distinguished Marion Cotillard, the other is the highly anticipated story of the life and accomplishments of the Apple founder and visionary. He’s promoting both with a beautiful interview in T Magazine, the New York Time’s fashion publication.

Michael Fassbender, the late bloomer

Fassbender is what you could call a late bloomer, in the sense that he didn’t break on the scene until he was in his thirties, though not for lack of trying. The first film that got him proper attention was Steve McQueen’s directorial debut “Hunger,” which also got him the lead in “Shame,” another McQueen masterpiece.

They would work together again in 2013, on “12 Years a Slave,” which won McQueen the Oscar for Best Picture.

Fassbender is very little present in the media: he doesn’t do too many interviews because he doesn’t really like the process of being a movie star (which is ironic because he is one, thanks to his role as Magneto in the rebooted “X-Men” franchise), and he mostly keeps to himself when he’s not promoting a new movie.

He has somewhat of a reputation of a Casanova, but T Magazine insists that there’s little to support it. More than anything, Fassbender gets media attention for his performances, which have distinguished him as one of the most intense and committed, talented and captivating actors of the moment.

The art of Michael Fassbender

So, T Magazine wants to know, what does it take to get him ready for a new character? Is his preparation process more difficult because he never chooses similar characters?

With Fassbender, the secret lies in never taking his work home with him. According to his peers, he has an almost unsettling ability to switch on a character at the drop of a hat, but he gets out of that zone as quickly as he enters it, when the scene is done.

He spends time with his character, but not to the point of allowing them to seep into his real life. His method, he says, could be reduced to “not thinking about it.”

“I go over the words again and again and again and again. Hundreds of times. It’s more of a doing than a thinking thing. I have thoughts about the characters, I learn about them, but that’s not necessarily where the majority of the work gets done,” he explains.

Embedded below is a very artsy video shot by famed photographer Bruce Weber for T Magazine. It’s gorgeous.