You've doubtless seen the trailer for X-Men: First Class by now. If not, go now.
Irish actor Michael Fassbender is playing the mutant master of magnetism Magneto. But he won't be basing his performance on Ian McKellen's earlier film version, rather he dove into the vast reserve of research in the page of the comic book source material. He explained to Superherohype.com.
"I just tried to steep myself in the source material, the comic books, and there's so much. He's such a fascinating guy, and how he becomes Magneto is a really interesting journey. The fact that he has been let down so many times by human beings and this distrust that he has. You can see where it's coming from. Obviously, what was happening in the concentration camps and then he escaped from there with Magda, fell in love with her, then their child got burned and he ended up killing the whole town and she's like 'Whoa, this is too heavy for me, I gotta leave.' So the love of his life left him… We see the stuff that's happening in the concentration camp, you see that, but you don't see that relationship (with Magda). I've just held that for my own personal use (in developing) the character, so when we meet him at the beginning of this film, he's definitely a lone wolf. He's on a mission and he's uncompromising and then he bumps into Charles, literally collides into him, and then it's the development of their relationship and really exploring that during the '60s and the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King an Malcolm X."
He didn't mention how far he got, but film fans better hope he didn't go so far as to be holding Xorn in his backpocket. The movie could take a real left turn in that case.
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I hope he’s read Chaykin’s Magneto story recently released… It’s just not Mags otherwise.
that’s awesome
I have a feeling Fassenbender will be my favourite part of this movie. Just the way he delivered that “Peace was never an option” line in the trailer got me giddy.
I’d love to hear his thoughts once he got into Onslaught. And then New X-men “So I guess he died, but no really, and he was taking drugs… I didn’t use any of that I’ll be honest”
This guys was awesome in Inglorious Basterds, stole every scene he was in. Seems to be a real actors actor.
Now that I read that, yeah I can totally see that in his performance in the trailer. Not much McKellan in his performance and more of the Magneto from the comics, which I’m ok with. I think it would be distracting if we got a McKellan impersonation for two hours.
Dammit! Stop making this movie sound interesting! There’s just going to be too much fun this year at the movies! Too much!
I just don’t know… I mean, I’ll go see it and all… but I just don’t know. All the previous X movies were just so lacking. I don’t understand how someone can mak Ironman, Incredible Hulk, and Ironman 2 but no one could make an X movie of that caliber.
After watching “Hunger”, this guy could read the phonebook and make it compelling. It also sounds like he dug deep to give Magneto his due. Hopefully, it shows up on screen.
Nice to hear that he is getting inspiration from the material, most actors don’t do that.
Although if only the Howard Chaykin one-shot came out beforehand, we would’ve seen some real craziness right there.
I’ve seen Fassbender in a lot of things, anyone doubting his acting abilities should check out the movie ‘Hunger,’ where he plays an I.R.A prisoner on hunger strike (Bobby Sands). Epic.
I like McAvoy for Prof-X too, think this movie looks superior to Captain America and a Thor movie where I feel like I could call it scene for scene based purely on the trailer