Michael Fassbender interview discussing Magneto, MLK and Malcolm X
Metro.us landed an interview with Michael Fassbender who will play Magneto in the upcoming X-Men prequel/reboot “X-Men: First Class” The trailer and early photos have re-energized apathetic fans still recovering for the horrible “X-Men 3: Last Stand”.
UPDATE WITH PHOTOS OF FASSBENDER’S VILLAIN
Interviewer Heidi Patalano approached the interview with standard questions about Magneto’s past:
Fassbender:
You will see a little bit of that, yeah, at the beginning but I thought what was interesting was what happened to him after the war – he gets that young gypsy girl out of the concentration camp that he falls in love with. They take off together and have a baby and the mob ends up going crazy and burning down the house and the child dies in the blaze. Magneto goes ape shit and kills everybody. She’s freaked out and leaves him. So by the time we get to him in the movie, he’s a bit of a loner, really.
Patalano: Performing opposite James McAvoy who plays Professor X – who your character is close friends with before you become mortal enemies – must’ve been an attractive component to doing this film.
Definitely a big draw for me. At signing up, I only knew that James was attached to be in the film so I thought okay, he’s an intelligent guy and he’ll bring something to it.
Can you talk a little bit about the changes we see Magneto go through in the film?
It’s kind of like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X — Charles [Professor X] being Martin Luther and Erik [Magneto] being Malcolm X — these two ideals, two intelligent guys but with different methods of achieving what they want. Erik doesn’t trust humans and thinks they need to be wiped away and I can kind of see his point. It’s like Homo Sapiens, Neanderthals … it’s like it’s the next stage of evolution. And humans have made a bit of balls of it. We have, haven’t we?
How was working with the special effects?
Ah that’s John Dykstra — he’s the guy who did the original Star Wars and sh—t. There’s something for the fanatics out there. He’s an amazing guy. But how do I feel about acting with a tennis ball? That didn’t bother me so much. It’s like saying in theater that it’s supposed to be cold and you see a town off in the distance — it’s kind of the same thing.
How do you feel about the fact that after this movie comes out, you won’t be able to walk down the street in peace.
It’s going to be an interesting thing. There are so many X-Men fans out there. Hopefully, they’re going to be happy. They didn’t seem to be happy with the last two installments so hopefully this will please them again.
