Michael Fassbender (3 page)

Adele was particularly fond of 1970s American cinema. Her favourite actor was John Cazale, who played Fredo Corleone in
The Godfather
and Sal in
Dog Day Afternoon
. Sadly he died of cancer in 1978 at the age of 42, having made just five feature films. They are all widely regarded as classics, however, the other three being
The Conversation, The Godfather: Part II
and his final film,
The Deer Hunter
.

Michael became as big a fan of Cazale as his mother, along with the stylish yet naturalistic crime films of the era, including
Mean Streets, Serpico
and
Taxi Driver
. ‘It was a golden era and Cazale didn't put a foot wrong with his movie choices,' Michael once explained. ‘He played unappealing, cowardly, sickly characters. He was very good at releasing any ego and bringing these characters to a very real space without making them very clichéd.' Cazale would be a big influence when Michael turned to acting. Other actors he admired included Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Gene Hackman, Sean Penn, Robert Mitchum and Montgomery Clift.

As the awkward adolescent years kicked in,
Magnum
P.I
. was usurped as his favourite TV show by
Wonder
Woman
. This starred Lynda Carter as a sexy superhero who would quickly change into her skimpy outfit of tight, cleavage-enhancing bodice, pants and knee-high boots, via the aid of TV visual effects of super-fast revolutions and a flash of light. ‘I was always trying to capture her between the change,' Michael recalled. ‘I felt unusual things were happening to me and I didn't understand. Cartoons might be on the other channel but I no longer wanted to watch them.'

He remembers, too, the excruciating experience of Josef sitting him down and giving him the ‘sex talk'. ‘I was like, “Oh God, why does he have to do it?” I think I was thirteen and I had a girlfriend. It was embarrassing as hell, like “Urgh!” I knew about all that anyway – you know, boys at school, who'd picked it up from older brothers and cousins.'

Adele, who enjoyed singing around the house, encouraged Michael's musical talents. In traditional Irish fashion he started by playing the tin whistle and then progressed to the piano accordion. He really wanted to play the violin but his parents told him that violins would be too expensive to buy. Later, like many teens the world over, he picked up a guitar and dreamed of being in a band. In Michael's case, it was to be the lead singer in a
heavy-metal
band. He particularly admired Kirk Hammett, lead guitarist with Metallica. But although Michael grew his hair long and was adept at flamboyant rock-star posturing
with the guitar in his bedroom, when he heard how good some of his friends were playing the guitar in reality, he knew that he was just not good enough.

It was questionable, too, whether he had the true
rock-star
temperament. On one occasion he and a group of friends travelled to Dingle where they were going to busk on the streets but they were put off when it started to rain. They persuaded a local publican to let them play inside his pub but heavy-metal music at lunchtime was not of great appeal to his customers and they were repeatedly told to ‘turn it down'. Eventually they were playing with unplugged electric guitars before deciding to give it up as a lost cause!

In 1993 Josef and Adele took over a popular restaurant called West End House in the town centre, opposite St Brendan's. Josef worked in the kitchen and established a reputation for excellent but unfussy French bistro food, while Adele was front of house. But the first few years were tough and when Michael asked for trainers and fashionable clothes, he would often be told that they couldn't afford it. It taught him the value of money and of hard work. Nothing comes easy. But Michael and Catherine were somewhat spoiled with the beautiful meals that they got to eat in the restaurant. A particular favourite of Michael's was his father's rack of lamb and even now Michael follows the way Josef taught him to do it. He was later to describe his father as being ‘an artist in the kitchen'.

Michael earned pocket money by helping his parents at their restaurant, washing up and waiting on tables. He later remarked that it was good training for an actor being ‘front of house' where you need to be smiling and looking happy no matter what turmoil is going on in the kitchen or in your own life. His parents made sure that he put away half the money he earned as an investment for the future.

When he was 16 Josef and Adele let Michael live above West End House during the week in exchange for doing weekend shifts downstairs. The restaurant was three miles from home and he enjoyed the independence this gave him. He spent much of his spare time wandering through the beautiful Killarney National Park, nestled among the mountains, with its acres of woods, lakes and grassland where red deer roam. The area is steeped in history. Here, on the edge of a lake, stands romantic Ross Castle, built by O'Donoghue Mór in the 15th century. It came into the hands of the Earls of Kenmare, who owned an extensive portion of the lands that are now part of the Park, and was the last stronghold in Munster to hold out against Oliver Cromwell's forces, eventually succumbing to General Ludlow in 1652.

Despite Michael's interest in films, he never even thought about acting at that stage. He admits to being an average student with no real idea what he wanted to do with his life – ‘pretty clueless and irresponsible'. Unlike his academic sister, Catherine, who loved reading and was always asking questions, he was much more interested in his imaginative
world and doing physical things, such as playing in the park and climbing trees. Sometimes he would ‘skive off' school with a friend, Ernest Johnson. Whenever Michael got nervous about it, Ernest would take the philosophical approach and ask, ‘What'll it matter in a hundred years' time?' This phrase stuck with Michael and whenever he had concerns about taking certain acting roles he would just remember Ernest's words and get on with it. The philosophy also chimes with that of director Steve McQueen, who Michael was to meet some 17 years later – ‘We're all going to die anyway, so we might as well just get on with it' – a phrase that Michael has often repeated.

For a time Michael considered a profession in law but, being only an occasional and slow reader, he felt that he would not be able to keep up with the many legal books and documents that he would need to plough through during his studies. Architecture was another idea that evaporated after he failed his technical-drawing exam. His thoughts then turned to journalism and he particularly fancied being a war reporter. He hoped to do well enough at school to be able to go to college in Dublin but fate was to lead him in another direction.

C
atherine was now at the prestigious Trinity College in Dublin, studying psychology and neuroscience, but Michael was much more vague about what he wanted to do in life. He was only an average pupil at school and did not have the focus, application or academic ability of his sister. But then one fateful day, when he was 17, he happened to see a piece of paper on the school notice board offering a new Wednesday afternoon activity. The message was from Donie Courtney, a former pupil who had taken a course at the Gaiety School of Acting [the National Theatre School of Ireland] and come back to introduce drama and comedy classes to his old school.

Courtney had set up a couple of workshop classes and an intrigued Michael went along and found that he thoroughly enjoyed the experience. It provided an ideal outlet for his creativity and fantasies and, to his surprise, he did not feel shy or self-conscious when acting. As he was later to explain, ‘It just felt right to me, as a way to express myself. All these people in my head could finally find a place to go.’

Disappointed when the classes came to an end, he caught sight of Courtney in town shortly afterwards and, after telling him how much he had enjoyed the acting classes, eagerly asked if there would be any more. Recognising his talent and enthusiasm, Courtney told him about a professional theatre company he had set up in Killarney called Bricriu – named after a troublemaker from the Ulster Cycle of Irish myths and legends – and suggested that he go and do some part-time stuff with them. It was a pivotal moment for Michael – it set him on the course of acting and sparked in him the realisation that it was something he was good at and could possibly do for a living.

‘That was it,’ he explained. ‘It happened fast. I felt it was something that I could really do. It’s really thanks to Donie and Bricriu that I got started [in acting]. Donie opened up the whole world to me.’

At the theatre company he did pantomime, theatre in pubs, sketch work and improvisation, keenly absorbing as much as he could about the various techniques. His first
performance was on stage in a pub in an off-the-wall production called
Fairytales Fairytales 123
– an amalgamation of
Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk
and
Cinderella
. He played one of Cinderella’s ugly sisters!

Initially, he wanted to get into comedy movies. He loved the film
Fletch
, starring Chevy Chase as an investigative reporter, and had watched it so many times that he practically knew the script by heart. But his thoughts turned towards drama and, although he enjoyed theatre, it was the world of movies that enchanted him.

‘Aside from his looks, he was very talented,’ Courtney recalled. ‘He had charisma and this drive to succeed. You could see he had huge talent.’

For the first time Michael had a focus on what he really wanted to do with his life and he became a driven man. ‘Once I realised perhaps I could be quite good I committed to it a hundred per cent. It was my one and only priority.’

Avidly he studied his favourite actors in his favourite movies – Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino et al., wanting to get to the level they had achieved. He also ploughed through their biographies but it didn’t always make for encouraging reading. ‘When I read that Pacino and De Niro were nearly thirty years old when they broke through, I remember thinking, “Jesus, will it take that long?”’ he recalled.

Quentin Tarantino’s stylish gangster movie
Reservoir
Dogs
made a big impact on Michael and his school pals. One afternoon they were re-enacting the chilling scene at the warehouse – in which Mr Blonde cuts off the ear of a policeman to the tune of
Stuck in the Middle With You
– when Michael turned to his friend Marco and said that they should do a stage version of it.

Showing the boldness and confidence of youth, Michael left the Bricriu after less than a year to set up his own production company with his friends. They put on a play version of
Reservoir Dogs
at local nightclub, Ravels, in Killarney for two nights, with Michael producing and directing. He also played the part of Mr Pink, made famous by Steve Buscemi in the film. ‘I guess that was the advantage of doing it myself – I got to cast myself in the best part,’ he said. ‘Mr Pink always appealed to me because he was a survivor, an almost
rat-like
character – he would survive any sort of outcome. I just thought it was an interesting character to explore. I approached him more like [Robert De Niro’s] Johnny Boy in
Mean Streets
than the Buscemi characterisation. Like a loose cannon.

‘It went down really well. We had 114 people for the first night, then 140. We packed out the club.’ Michael wanted to hand over the door money to a charitable organisation but whenever he mentioned
Reservoir Dogs
he found people backing away, concerned about any association with a film notorious for its violence. In the end he gave the proceeds to some people trying to raise
money for a little girl whose sight was impaired and needed an eye operation.

Putting on the production proved to be a wonderful learning experience about the various aspects of performance – acting, producing, directing and publicity. And it gave Michael confidence for the future. ‘I was totally naïve but I learned so much,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know what the hell I was doing but I knew that with hard work and enthusiasm, things get done.’

Talking about the production on Radio Kerry he was asked how on earth he had managed to get the rights to put on
Reservoir Dogs
. A nervous Michael just grinned and replied, ‘Don’t mention that!’

When Michael told his parents that he wanted to act for a living they cautioned him to get a degree first but he insisted that he had to go for it straight away. He was supported by his grandmother, who also felt he should go for it. Not used to such clarity and forcefulness from their dreamer of a son, Josef and Adele eventually let him have his way.

After leaving St Brendan’s, Michael worked in his parents’ restaurant during the day and acted at night. Josef, who had given his son a strong work ethic, had always instilled in him the idea of ‘don’t do it unless you’re going to do it properly’ but he was not enamoured with his son’s choice of career and, more than once, told him to ‘get a proper job’.

Josef was worried about acting being such an unstable
profession, in which the majority were unemployed and the fact that success depended as much on luck and whom you met as it did on talent. He also didn’t want his son to be heartbroken by failing to make it. But seeing that this was no passing phase, and admiring his drive and ambition, he gradually became more supportive. Josef was to later joke, after Michael had made it in Hollywood, that he was pleased his son hadn’t listened to him!

After leaving St Brendan’s Michael moved to Cork to study drama at the Coláiste Stiofain Naofa [College of Further Education] for a year before progressing, at the age of 19, to the prestigious Central School of Speech and Drama in London, where he enrolled in a three-year course. But money was tight and it didn’t go a long way in London. ‘It took me a while to come to grips with how expensive London was,” Michael told the
Hollywood Reporter
. “My parents helped me out but we never had a lot of money. So it was very sticky the first three or four years between paying drama-school fees and surviving. The first place I lived was a studio I shared with a Brazilian girl. We weren’t seeing each other or anything but I remember there was a big hole in the window and it was so cold in the winter.’

Michael found work in a bar at Victoria Station that paid
£
3.29 an hour. He would do an 11-hour shift on a Saturday and work from 11am-4pm on a Sunday, but he was put on emergency income tax deductions until his
correct tax code for the year could be worked out based on his income. This, he said, left him with something like
£
15 to take home. ‘It was a real struggle for the first three years and, to be honest, I don’t know how I did it.’

But although he admired and respected his drama teachers, it was not a happy experience for him at the school. He dropped out after two and a half years. ‘I’d had enough. You start off with thirty-two students and when I left there [were] eighteen or so remaining because people were getting kicked off or whatever. It was pretty harsh. And they didn’t think of movies as a pure art form like theatre acting, but it’s films that I love most. There’s an intimacy in movies – I wanted to have the same impact on others that movies had on me. So I got an agent and reckoned I had learned as much as I could. But it was a mistake, actually. Nobody knew who I was then for ages because I missed it when all the agents and casting directors came.’

But Michael’s naked ambition had its day – after a fashion – when, at the age of 21, he landed a television commercial for Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS). In this cheeky advert Michael plays a young man who wakes up in a strange bed and wonders where he is. Then he turns to see he is lying next to a naked girl and smiles smugly. In need of a drink, he walks downstairs naked, opens the fridge and takes out some milk. Viewers see his bare behind. Suddenly, the light comes on in the kitchen and Michael turns and, to his
embarrassment, sees the girl’s mother staring at him. A message then comes up on the screen: ‘When you’d rather be somewhere else. Inexpensive flights for people under 26.’

Michael had to fight his shyness in having to strip off on screen. It was a daunting prospect for someone who had never been on television before, let alone naked. Despite Sweden’s reputation for being more at ease with nudity than many other countries, Michael had expected to be provided with some sort of covering for his private parts. ‘But they were like, “OK, when you’re ready Michael, drop your boxers and we’ll go for real this time.” So that was my first screen test and my first job.’

His next job was significantly more highbrow. In May 1999 he joined the Oxford Stage Company’s touring production of Chekhov’s
Three Sisters
, playing second lieutenant Fedotik. It was an innovative production by the company’s talented artistic director, Dominic Dromgoole, which won good reviews. But then… nothing. The phone went quiet and Michael began to regret leaving drama school too early.

He got a job in a factory unloading boxes but the hours meant that he was unable to attend auditions – the lifeblood of the fledgling actor – so he quit that job to do bar work, which was far more flexible. But eight or nine worrying months went by with no acting work forthcoming. Things were looking grim and thoughts of returning home were recurring. Then, quite unexpectedly,
he landed a job in what was to become one of the most respected TV series in history, helmed by Hollywood royalty Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks.