Michael Fassbender

In Prometheus (2012), Michael Fassbender’s android David occupies himself on the voyage by cycling around the hold and learning dead languages. He is unfailingly composed, and his good manners become unsettling because nothing seems to surprise him. We were moved by those hobbies, because they made his isolation recognisable. Ridley Scott’s film struggles to make its humans half as interesting.

His breakthrough, Steve McQueen’s Hunger (2008), had already shown how uncomfortable he could make certainty. As Bobby Sands, he holds to his determination opposite Liam Cunningham’s priest without making it easy to admire him. McQueen’s Shame (2011) puts that persistence into Brandon’s pursuit of sex, which Fassbender makes look exhausting from the start. Both films benefit from his willingness to remain difficult company. In their third collaboration, 12 Years a Slave (2013), his frightening Edwin Epps sometimes advertises his volatility too loudly beside Chiwetel Ejiofor’s restraint.

Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs (2015) uses his impatience to keep arguments sharp. He adjusts his pressure to each opponent, though the film sometimes pays too little attention to whoever is being bullied. John Maclean’s Slow West (2015) gives his bounty hunter Silas fewer words and Kodi Smit-McPhee’s innocent traveller to look after. His concern for the boy convinces because Silas seems annoyed to feel it.

After a four-year acting break, his return in 2023 exposed the limits as well as the uses of that severity. In David Fincher’s The Killer (2023), his flat recitation of the hitman’s rules is funny until the repetition wears out the joke. Taika Waititi’s Next Goal Wins (2023) needs a looseness he cannot supply. His coach Thomas Rongen shouts, drinks and kicks water bottles, but the effort never becomes comic lightness.

Steven Soderbergh’s Black Bag (2025) makes better use of him as George Woodhouse, an almost motionless spy with a marriage worth believing in. Soderbergh shoots faces lit from below by screens and cuts briskly, keeping small reactions worth watching. Philip Messina’s dark-wood house suits George’s competence in the kitchen, while David Holmes’s brushed drums keep the talk moving. Blanchett’s larger, amused performance as his wife Kathryn helps make his affection convincing. Start there before deciding he is only good at making people uncomfortable.