Killer Instincts

From Playing Mr Pink in a School Play to Wielding Blades as the Ultimate Assassin, Michael Fassbender Reflects on a Career That's Never Lost Its Edge.

- Nev Pierce

As well as starring in Assassin’s Creed, you’re producing it. Is that a different kind of satisfaction?

I’ll tell you at Christmas! I mean, I enjoy it. It’s something that has always interested me, from the beginning when I stumbled upon acting through [theatre guru] Donie Courtney. He was a pupil at my school who went off and studied at the Gaiety School Of Acting. We had no drama class, so it never occurred to me that was an avenue I could go down until he came back [to teach] classes. I joined a company he set up and then six months after set up my own production company, Peanut Productions. We did a play of Reservoir Dogs which I directed, produced and acted in. So from the beginning I’ve always been interested in it.

Some actors, when they break through, sit back a little, but you really went with the momentum. Was that a conscious choice?

I suppose it’s just because I was sitting around waiting to do it through most of my twenties. Now I have an appetite. I have gone at it pretty ferociously over the last eight years. Maybe there’s a part of me that believes there’s a time where you’re at your best, and I wanna produce as much as I can when I’m at my best. Maybe I’m afraid I’m gonna die.

When Steven Soderbergh made Erin Brockovich, Traffic and Ocean’s Eleven really close together he said it just felt like he was “seeing the ball really well” — just go, go, go…