TO START AT THE END. As his interview with The Red Bulletin comes to a close, Michael Fassbender leans back in his chair at London’s Claridges Hotel and groans, “I’m starving!” He’s also shivering in an air-conditioning stream set to sub-arctic blast mode. For many Hollywood stars, these deprivations would have been the beginning of the conversation, with assistants peremptorily dispatched to source a club sandwich or to have the hotel’s climate control globally reset. Fassbender, though, is not that kind of star. Instead, he’s content to knuckle down and get the job done, fully engaged to the end. As an analogue, its perhaps an odd one, but in a small way it’s emblematic of the resilience and perseverance the 39-year-old has shown on his journey from smalltown Ireland to marquee billing in some of Hollywood’s most successful endeavours, from the X-Men franchise to the return of the iconic Alien series. Now he’s about to embark on another major project, translating the Assassin’s Creed video game from digital phenomenon to live-action blockbuster. 32
“ I ’ M AWA R E T H AT I ’ M G E T T I N G C L O S E R T O D E AT H , B U T W H E N the red bulletin: The character you play in Assassin’s Creed has a neardeath experience. Do you know what that feels like? michael fassbender: Well, I had this weird dream where I was cycling up a mountain in the Irish countryside where I grew up, and then I flew off the edge of a cliff to certain death. That felt so familiar, like it had already happened to me.
But you haven’t faced actual life or death situations? There were a couple of close calls. Once when I was riding my motorbike, I was sandwiched between two cars that were driving between 210 and 225kph. I could feel the rush of wind as one went by me. That was quite dangerous. Another time I was swimming in the ocean, the waves were pretty rough and I thought I was going to drown. Or when I was up in the mountains and the weather would change. THE RED BULLETIN