Steve McQueen Once Thought Michael Fassbender Was a ‘Pain’ When They Met
Michael Fassbender and filmmaker Steve McQueen have teamed up for several critically acclaimed movies.
But although the duo may make the perfect team now, it took a bit of time for McQueen to warm up to the actor.
Michael Fassbender compared his connection with Steve McQueen to Martin Scorsese’s connection with Robert De Niro
Fassbender credited working with certain directors as one of the sources for his Hollywood success. The X-Men: First Class star had been working from a young age, but found his groove thanks to the help of talented filmmakers.
“Well, you know, for the last couple of years, just the sort of directors who’ve been keen to work with me has really blown my mind and let me feel like I’m in a super-privileged position,” Fassbender once told Slant. “And it seems to be continuing, touch wood. That makes me feel super lucky. I started out when I was 17, and this is sort of the pinnacle.”
But he felt his work with McQueen played a tremendous and pivotal role for his status in the film industry. Fassbender believed that himself and McQueen had the type of bond that other successful actor-director combos had.
“Number one, I’ve formed a fantastic relationship with Steve McQueen. When I was 17, I was like, ‘God, I’d love to have a relationship like a Scorsese/De Niro or Sidney Lumet/Pacino.’ I wanted that sort of connection with a director, and I’ve discovered that with Steve,” he said.
Steve McQueen thought Michael Fassbender was a ‘pain’ when they first met
Fassbender first teamed up with McQueen on the 2008 film Hunger. It was McQueen’s directorial debut, and one that went on to attract much critical attention. Fassbender would audition for a lead role in the movie. But when McQueen first met Fassbender, McQueen didn’t think the actor made a good first impression.
“When I first met him, he was a pain,” McQueen once said in an interview with the Washington Post. “It was almost like he didn’t want to be [there]. It might have been my own naivete, being a first-time director, not understanding that, more often than not, actors get rejected. And they sometimes only bring a bit of themselves [to an audition] because they get hurt all the time. But with Michael, I thought, ‘What’s he doing here?’ There was almost a cockiness about him.”
McQueen initially dismissed Fassbender. But he decided to give the star one more shot. On Fassbender’s next audition, he showed McQueen a different side to him.
“Then my casting director persuaded me to bring him in the next day, and he was a different person. I thought, ‘Wow, that could be Bobby Sands.’ We met a third time when I actually gave him the role, then I got on the back of his motorcycle and we went out for a drink, and that was it. We got on like a house on fire from then on,” McQueen recalled.
Steve McQueen once shared what separated Michael Fassbender from other actors
Since working with Fassbender, McQueen has had high praise for his frequent collaborator. The Oscar-winner confided that he didn’t think Hollywood had ever seen an actor like his Shame star. But Fassbender’s acting abilities wasn’t only what made him unique to McQueen. Rather, it was Fassbender’s ability to tap into certain vulnerabilities that other actors wouldn’t that made him a standout.
“He’s a very visceral male person. He’s a man, but at the same time, there’s an extraordinary femininity, tenderness and openness, and I think that’s the appeal. Often, actors want to be these macho types and they never show their heart or their vulnerability,” McQueen once told Collider. “I think it’s pretty amazing that he can be so open and vulnerable, and still be able to wear it with pride. Most actors will never take that risk because they’d feel too vulnerable and open. I think it’s extraordinary, really.”
