Michael Fassbender
I just went off for two months traveling around Europe on a motorcycle and pretty much turned my phone off. I did 5,000 miles with my dad. We went through Holland, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Italy... and then I did Spain and France by myself.Collection: Dad
When I was four, I just wanted to drive, I collected toy cars. Where does that sort of thing come from? In hindsight you go, 'Oh, liked it because of this.' Maybe it's just the wheel.Collection: Car
There's no point in swanning through and being cool as a breeze in every scene. It's not really that interesting. Even if you're a superhero.Collection: Cool
We feel a lot of pressure about looking silly or appearing weak, whatever that means, or being a failure. You have to keep in your head: what's the worst that can happen?Collection: Failure
We did a lot of that in drama school: intellectualising and maybe justifying your position. 'I am a thinking actor and I have thought this through' - well, just do it. I much prefer the doing aspect.
There's so much going on in the world. There's so much information being thrown at us - so many things are being sold to us, and we're being told how we should appear and how to be more successful, blah, blah, blah. How does that manifest itself? In the pressures, the stress, this need to escape.
What I find really interesting is to try and mix it up, to push myself and try different things. I don't want to stay in my comfort zone. I want to take risks and keep myself scared.
Everything I put my name to and take part in, I want to be good. That's not saying it will always happen. But I want to make bold choices.
There's no point thinking, 'Well, my life's certainly worked out, I've got all the answers.' It would be wrong for me to say that I don't get seduced by certain things. That things don't become tempting.
Even if I'm playing a superhero, it has to be steeped in reality.
Magneto has a whole lot of complexity to him. Emotionally, he's coming from a very damaged place. I like the ambivalence of it. I want the audience leaving the theater wondering, asking the questions themselves rather than being spoon-fed like a lot of these super-villain characters.
It's more interesting isn't it, if I've got a hedonistic dark side?
Nobody wants to hear Metallica at lunchtime.
My goal was for acting to become my main income. I would say to myself, 'I'm good enough.' That became my mantra.
Any good kitchen should be stocked up in oysters, shouldn't they?
I always approach film as a fan.
I don't know what's going to happen. I'm flavor of the month at the moment, but somebody else is going to roll around the corner in three months' time. I just want to keep working. I can't stop!
I guess in the independent market, I'd be getting offers, but in terms of big studio films, I still have to audition. I don't think my name is that well-known, I don't have much of a following to guarantee box office success yet.
You use words like 'introvert' and 'extrovert,' various traits of a personality. A lot of that stuff, we used in drama school, and that was kind of interesting, to realize my teachers sort of ripped off a lot of Jung. And how much of it is part of our society now, these phrases, introvert and extrovert, where it actually came from.
'Hunger' definitely changed my life, in terms of being recognized by filmmakers, since that was very much a filmmakers' film.
You know, it's amazing. I don't even have a car, would you believe it? I had a motorbike and it got stolen last year. So I've got to buy another one of those, I suppose. I can treat myself to that.
I'm always interested in trying to investigate different personalities. I want to keep myself guessing and keep the fear element alive, so that I don't get too comfortable.
I came to Los Angeles and did auditions for television. I made a terrible mess of most of them and I was quite intimidated. I felt very embarrassed and went back to London. I got British television jobs intermittently between the ages of 23 and 27, but it was very patchy.
The arts are very alive in Ireland, so that had its influence on me. But I consider myself European, really.
I keep everything very simple. I like telling stories.
As an audience member, those studio films are fun. I like an adventure tale, and I also like to go see something that has more of a social pulse. I like to keep learning and trying new things. And if the scripts are good, it doesn't really matter.
Why not provoke some thought and get people talking about things? I like characters that are flawed because we all are. When people break up in a script, you think, Oh, right, there must be tears shed here. But maybe the fact of the matter is that they're both laughing.
People are complicated. Our behavior towards one another is strange. So I like opportunities to investigate that.
Scratch the surface of what's socially normal. I suppose in some way all of us have something we display to the public and things we feel too ashamed of or uncomfortable with to reveal to other people.
I've always been more inclined to go out to work than carry on with academic studies.
Why does a three-year-old, and it's usually boys, want to drive the tractor or have machinery and be in control of it? I don't know. Why wouldn't you ask to boil a kettle or something? Maybe you would, I dunno.
I'm fairly competitive.
I don't think peroxide-blond hair is a beneficial look for me.
If there's friends around, I'll cook. Or if I have a girlfriend. But on my own I kind of fell out of the habit of it, and it's a shame really because I know it's good for me. It's something quite therapeutic.
I take my work seriously but I can't take myself too seriously. I'm in such a crazy privileged position.
Big things have small beginnings.Collection: Cinema
Everyone's crazy anyway. And those who think they aren't, are the ones who are even crazier - because they're in denial.Collection: Crazy
You want society to accept you; but you can’t even accept yourself.Collection: Want
I quite enjoy the lines on my forehead because they show my life. That’s my history and I like to see that in other people. Like this wrinkle is due to some girl who broke my heart. I don’t want to escape it in any way.Collection: Girl
I’m aware of my weaknesses and THE BEAST WITHIN.Collection: Weakness
I remember hearing that the spirit was always next to you, so I would always make room in my bed for the spirit ... I'd make room for the teddy bears, Jesus and me. And then I'd wake up in the morning, and I'd squashed 'em all.Collection: Jesus
Trying to identify and understand, as opposed to judging, is very important for me, in approaching characters.Collection: Character
'Cause I do so much homework I'm good to go on the first take; I don't want to rehearse. I like the element of what's unpredictable of that first take and nobody knows what's going to happen, and I'm a big fan of that.Collection: Firsts
I love to go into a movie and have no idea what's going to happen in it.Collection: Ideas
I don't like to plan anything ever because it never seems to work. I'm just really...let's just get this film out and see how this one does.Collection: Doe
[As an actor] I have ideas, but things should always be fluid. You should always be ready to follow an instinct. Something might reveal itself on the day.Collection: Ideas
If you're dealing with a character that actually exists, there's an awful lot of information there. So, you can put together, from the information, motivations, insecurities, reactions. Where does that seed get born, if you like?... What I do is put that together.Collection: Motivation
I believe that if you go and see a film you should have to sort of invest something yourself and you have to do a little bit of the work as an audience member, so when you leave the cinema you should be having those conversations either with yourself - if you're crazy like me- or with friends afterwards.Collection: Crazy
My goal was for acting to become my main income. I would say to myself, 'I'm good enough'. That became my mantra.Collection: Goal
"X-Men" is not really about mutants; it's about humanity. I think it's about the human race. We're an absolutely destructive race. It seems that we can't seem to get beyond this level of tribalism that has been around for thousands of years. Anything we fear we tend to destroy.Collection: Men