Michael Fassbender: “I owe a lot to my naivete”

We meet in the lobby of the famous Venetian hotel Excelsior, executed in a pompous Moorish style. Tall, thin-boned, clear-eyed Fassbender smiles at me with his disarming smile, but looks somehow vulnerable against the backdrop of the decadent luxury of Excelsior. Countless chuckling wrinkles and reddish three-day unshaven give him defenseless touching. And childish irresponsibility…

He is 34 years old, he entered the big cinema just three years ago – and immediately as a great, very great artist, “the main discovery of the generation”, “the new Marlon Brando”. But we still do not know that here, at the Venice Film Festival, he will receive the Golden Lion as the best actor. In the Venice competition, two films with him at once – David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, where he played Jung, and Steve McQueen’s Shame, where he is an average New Yorker on the run from feelings to sensations. “I pushed through with quantity,” Fassbender later modestly. Or is he serious? It does not claim its own importance. Answers without preliminary reflections, frankness in self-esteem. Frayed jeans, a white shirt loose and comical flip flops – a complete lack of male aggressiveness.

And I suddenly understand what answer is possible to the question that I was going to ask Fassbender – why he has not yet been made a tabloid hero, although he has already become a “celebrity” and is certainly an interesting young man. The answer is simple: Fassbender is on the screen, even if he is completely without clothes, as if there is no body. He is the dramatic rebelliousness of Rochester in Jane Eyre, the tragic determination of an IRA militant in The Hunger, the deadly insensitivity of the sexaholic in Shame. The power of heroes overshadows Fassbender. He is a pure spiritual emanation and gives up his winning “physics” without regret. That’s why there’s such a big gap between these two – a handsome guy swinging a flip-flop under the umbrella of Excelsior’s garden, and his screen projection, which can go through a hunger strike and die, as in “Hunger”, be exposed to full nudity, as in the first frames of “Shame”, or to show adventurous courage, as in Inglourious Basterds.

But, admiring the second, I try to understand who the first is.

Psychologies: I saw one funny video on Youtube: you came to us in Moscow with the film “Angel”, walked along the Arbat, and there … In general, in that video – your communication with some obscure old woman …

Michael Fassbenerd: Yes, grandma! I know this Russian word – babushka! And our translator told me that in Russian it means not just “an elderly lady”, but a dear person, a grandmother. And that you generally accept these appeals to strangers as to relatives – aunt, uncle, father. I liked it incredibly – a language that makes everyone not strangers to each other. Relatives!

But still, how did it happen?

M.F.: Yes, just – we were walking along the street, the old woman let go of some remark in our direction, I became interested. The translator translated … And then it was necessary to correspond to the situation.

Sounds like a credo – fit the situation.

M.F.: Well… You know, it looks like it. I am against violence. Over life, in particular. I don’t climb to the top – I just do what I do best. And I try to use the opportunities provided by fate. Now I understand that … as if I am sailing in a boat, leaving the oars. And when you go with the flow like that … you can see the surroundings, beautiful landscapes open before you.

But your profession is extremely competitive. In it, they say, one must constantly fight – for roles, for recognition.

M.F.: But in the course of this process, you receive so many rejections that, if by nature you are not able to become embittered, you learn humility. And you just keep on going to auditions, auditions, trying to show what you are capable of. Or you quit. Do you know the English proverb “A rolling stone does not grow moss”? Here it is – exactly my credo. The main thing is to move, act, and then we’ll see. Something will happen by itself.

Did it ever occur to you to “quit this thing”?

M.F.: Well, it comes to all of us at some point. You can become an actor, finish acting school, but acting is incredibly difficult to live. After drama school, I worked for a while at the factory – things weren’t going well. It seemed that this profession was not for me. And thought about opening a bar. Or rather, and now I think: the roles will run out, I will open a bar. I play the guitar – more than average. I speak German – very mediocre. And only two things seem to work out well for me – roles and a vodka-martini cocktail. So I think quite logically: I can’t play anymore, I’ll take care of the second one, for which I have the ability. After all, I’m a hereditary restaurateur. I was twelve or thirteen when my parents finally opened their own restaurant. Prior to that, my father had a pretty grandiose career as a chef. He worked in the famous London Savoy, in Ireland he was the chef in five-star hotels – The Europe and Dunloe Castle. Most likely, this does not mean anything to you, but, I assure you, these are very high positions in terms of the boss ranking. And then my father opened his own restaurant. And then my mother and I were in the service! My sister was studying at the university at that moment, but we … Mom was the head waiter, and I was everything – a waiter, a dishwasher, a kitchen laborer. Came from school – it was across the street from the restaurant – and hung around there. Then he began to replace his mother. You see, when your family has a restaurant, it is a job for everyone and forever. No holidays, no days off. But the main thing in this work is that you learn to be equally polite with everyone, you should be useful to every visitor. You cannot show your emotions, mood, you are fulfilling a service contract with a client. This is a very disciplined occupation – a restaurant. I sometimes find myself behaving like a maître d’ with people: holding back in order to fully understand what the “client” wants.

But you are half German and your discipline must be genetic!

M.F.: But half Irish! And my German half dictates to me that any mess is a mess, and the Irish half dictates that we urgently need to arrange a creative bedlam. Irish blood is rebellious, reckless, and it is stronger than disciplined German. Although my mother jokes that my sister and I (and my sister is a serious scientist and poise itself) are real Germans, because we are waiting for the verb.

I.e?

M.F.: That is, the grammar, the structure of the phrase in German is such that the verb is always located at the end of the sentence. Until you wait until the end of the phrase, you will not understand what, in fact, it is about. It is believed that the Germans do not interrupt each other, because they are waiting for the verb – in order to begin to object competently. And my mother is right – in my life I always try to wait for the verb.

So are you a balanced person?

M.F.: No, I can’t say this, but … I am happy most of my life. I can see happy moments. In general, I think that these moments are the most important in life. Well, such elementary joyful flashes! Sometimes in the morning you enter the subway, buy a ticket and exchange a few words with the person who sells the tickets. And there is some kind of joyful feeling. The feeling of our connectedness, or something … I generally believe only in simple feelings, in simple motives, in simply established connections. And I think that this is the zone of real success – the relationship that we managed to build. They do everything else.

Is this your own theory?

M.F.: In my case, it is rather the result of practice. See. One of the people closest to me is Steve McQueen (British film director, author of the films Hunger and Shame. – Approx. ed.). We met when I came to audition for Hunger. I was an actor with a couple of roles, and he was a well-established video artist, but new to cinema. I then only did that I received refusals after auditions, but I tried to keep the brand. And so, as Steve later told me, there was some, as he says, a touching combination of bravado and hopelessness in me. He was experiencing something of the same kind – he decided to declare himself in cinema, a new field, but he did not feel particularly confident. Rather, fear. And we immediately understood each other. And after the trials, we went on my motorcycle to one bar, where we just talked for three hours. By and large, about nothing … But precisely because we understood each other, we got both “Hunger” and, it seems, “Shame”. After all, in fact, my career began with “Hunger”, they noticed me. It turns out that Tarantino, and Cronenberg, and Hollywood in general appeared in my life thanks to our cooperation-friendship with Steve. Our relationship.

But what about acting?

M.F.: In my work, I am more of a perfectionist, but I think that this path is not universal. I believe that we are guided by instinct and providence. And more naivety … Here is an example. When Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs came out, I was seventeen. And he fascinated me so much that I suggested to my friends in a very heavy metal band – we all played heavy metal then – to put on our own performance according to this scenario. And we really staged and played it in clubs. I played Mr. Pink in it – the role of Steve Buscemi. And so, apparently, he became an actor. From a simple desire to play this particular performance. From a naive conviction that you can take and put on a performance, take it and play in it. I believe in the energy of naivete – it moves mountains. And it becomes the key to success in life. Think what you will, but I don’t believe in the effectiveness of perseverance. We are driven by simple feelings: interest, curiosity, attraction to another person. Everything that is best and constructive in us is simple, not complicated.

You are one of the few actors in serious cinema who dared to completely undress in front of the camera. In the opening shots of Shame, we see you completely naked. Was it an act for you or just a working moment?

M.F.: I could answer as, in fact, and correctly answer: I am an actor, and on the screen is not my penis, but my hero. And that’s it, forget it. But the problem is that this correct answer would not be the truth. I had such a hard time with these episodes! No, intellectually, I understand that women in the movies get naked in every second film and no one sees anything special in this. That gender equality also implies equality in film nudity… But it is difficult to put this idea into practice. And if you need to do it yourself, it’s almost impossible at all. Something needs to be overcome in oneself – the attitude that masculinity cannot be completely naked, because nudity is vulnerability … And vulnerability is not in the face of masculinity, it is in the face of femininity … But that’s okay, I don’t really believe in role-playing sexual attitudes and I don’t particularly strive to demonstrate masculinity somehow. The main thing is that personally I had to undress and show the world my … member. Damn, I wasn’t ready for this at all! Everyone tried to bargain some kind of compromise with Steve … Until he sighed and said: “Michael, God bless you, we are all going to die!” To be honest, I didn’t expect him to measure cinema in that way. What he really considers arrogant stupidity to seriously consider the issue of “nudity” in the face of eternity … Well, I realized: yes, the truth is nonsense. What’s the difference. Undress and enter the frame. I undressed and entered… There was one more thing that helped me. When I returned from tests with a score of 90% (which is actually not bad), my father calmly asked me: “Where did the other ten go?” What then drove me almost into depression, but in general it was clear: the father himself never does anything less than 100%. I remembered this at the moment when I had to shoot in these “naked” scenes.

What did your father say when he saw the movie?

M.F.: Good question! At first I was afraid of it. Then I thought that, in the end, the name “Shame” speaks for itself … He left the hall and said with such conviction: “This is a very important film, Mikey.” And that’s it. And the truth is, in the end we are all naked and defenseless.

Your life will probably change soon – you become a star. What are your expectations for this new phase?

M.F.: I’m waiting? You know, somewhere I read about beauty – that it is not a promise of prosperity. Beauty is its own reward. If you extend this position to life in general, then it turns out that it is a reward in itself. What else to expect?