Michael Fassbender

Michael Fassbender (born 2 April 1977) is a German and Irish actor.

He is the recipient of various accolades, including nominations for two Academy Awards, four BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globe Awards.

Fassbender was born in Heidelberg, West Germany, on 2 April 1977, the son of an Irish mother Adele (from Larne) and German father Josef Fassbender.

He has an older sister named Catherine, who is a neuropsychologist at the MIND Institute in Sacramento, California.

According to lore on his mother's side of family, his mother is the great-grandniece of Michael Collins, an Irish leader during the War of Independence.

When Fassbender was two years old, he moved with his parents to Killarney in Ireland where his parents were to operate the West End House, a restaurant where his father also worked as a chef.

His parents chose Killarney because they wanted their children to grow up in the countryside, in contrast to the industrial backdrop of their previous German residence.

Fassbender was raised Catholic and served as an altar boy at the church his family attended.

He and his sister spent summer holidays in Germany.

He attended Fossa National School near Killarney and St. Brendan's College in Killarney itself.

He decided that he wanted to be an actor at age 17 when he was cast in a play.

At 19, he left home to study at the Drama Centre London.

In 1999, he dropped out of the Drama Centre and toured with the Oxford Stage Company to perform the play Three Sisters.

Before finding steady work as an actor, he worked as a bartender, postman, manual labourer, market researcher for Royal Mail, and Dell employee.

Early roles include in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers (2001) and the Sky One fantasy drama Hex (2004–05).

Fassbender's first screen role was that of Pat Christenson in Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg's award-winning television miniseries Band of Brothers (2001).

He played the character of Azazeal in both series of Hex on Sky One and starred as the main character in the music video for the song "Blind Pilots" by the British band The Cooper Temple Clause.

In the video, he plays the part of a man out with friends on a stag night who slowly transforms into a goat due to wearing a cowbell necklace.

Fassbender played Jonathan Harker in a ten-part radio serialisation of Dracula produced by BBC Northern Ireland and broadcast in the Book at Bedtime series between 24 November and 5 December 2003.

He was also seen in early 2004 in a Guinness television commercial, The Quarrel, playing a man who swims across the ocean from Ireland to apologise personally to his brother in New York; this commercial won a gold medal at the 2005 FAB Awards.

Fassbender made his feature film debut in 300 (2006).

During the 2006 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Fassbender played Michael Collins, his great-great-granduncle, in Allegiance, a play by Mary Kenny based on the meeting between Collins and Winston Churchill.

In addition, Fassbender produced, directed, and starred in a stage version of Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, along with his production company.

He appeared in Angel (UK title: The Real Life of Angel Deverell), about the rise and fall of an eccentric young British writer (played by Romola Garai) in the early 20th century.

Fassbender plays her love interest, an average painter named Esmé.

In 2006, Fassbender played Stelios, a young Spartan warrior, in 300, a fantasy action film directed by Zack Snyder.

The drama—the first English-language effort by French director François Ozon and based on the novel by Elizabeth Taylor—premiered on 17 February 2007 at the Berlin International Film Festival and on 14 March 2007 in Paris.

He then made a brief appearance in Dean Cavanagh and Irvine Welsh's Wedding Belles as Barney, speaking with a Scottish accent.

He first came to prominence for playing Bobby Sands in Hunger (2008), for which he won a British Independent Film Award.

Subsequent roles include in Fish Tank (2009), Inglourious Basterds (2009), Jane Eyre (2011) and A Dangerous Method (2011).

Fassbender gained mainstream success for playing Erik Lehnsherr / Magneto in X-Men: First Class (2011), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) and X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), and David 8 and Walter One in Prometheus (2012), and its sequel, Alien: Covenant (2017).

For his portrayal of a sex addict in Steve McQueen's drama Shame (2011), he won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor and was nominated for Golden Globe and BAFTA Award.

His portrayal of Edwin Epps in 12 Years a Slave (2013) earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

He also starred in The Counselor (2013), Frank (2014), Macbeth (2015) and Steve Jobs (2015).

Fassbender received another Academy Award nomination for playing the title role in the latter.

After a hiatus, he starred in the action thriller film The Killer (2023).

Fassbender began competing in auto racing in 2017 with the Ferrari Challenge.

As of 2023, he races in the European Le Mans Series, driving for Proton Competition.

He has been married to Swedish actress Alicia Vikander since 2017.

In 2020, he was listed at number nine on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors.