Michael Fassbender Quotes

It's more interesting isn't it, if I've got a hedonistic dark side?

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.

I'm fairly competitive.

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.

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.

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.

We're all curious about a lot of things.

As an audience member and as an actor I much prefer to find ambiguity.

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.

If you're addicted to gambling, you know where to go to gamble. So, if you have a condition where you're addicted to sex, you know where other that are looking for the same thing are going.

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.

I'm not going to talk about my private life with a total stranger, unless I feel like I need to. Why would I? I don't.

I try my best to find variety in what I'm doing, but there's a lot out there that's the same.

When I go the cinema, unfortunately nowadays, especially with the big commercial films, the audience is spoon-fed through the entire experience and they don't have to do any work.

People are complicated. Our behavior towards one another is strange. So I like opportunities to investigate that.

"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.

Trying to identify and understand, as opposed to judging, is very important for me, in approaching characters.

'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.

It's such a terrifying thing when mobs of people get together and persecute foreigners.

I definitely think the first works best.

'Hunger' definitely changed my life, in terms of being recognized by filmmakers, since that was very much a filmmakers' film.

Any good kitchen should be stocked up in oysters, shouldn't they?

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.

You know, when you finish the day, and you finish the scene, you don't get a chance to go back to it. So you wanna make sure that everything is left on the floor.

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.

[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.

Sometimes if I stick in a character too much I feel like I might start to get blinkered, because I'm making my decisions too definite.

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 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.

I always approach film as a fan.

I could never swim in the ocean after seeing Jaws.

I keep everything very simple. I like telling stories.

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.

I suppose the doctor-patient relationship has that idea of transference. I think it's a special thing that doctors have. We all find doctors sexy. That's why there are so many TV shows about doctors.

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.

Nowadays, especially in big commercial films it's much easier for the audience, and they tend to get spoonfed. It's much more interesting to me, people leave the theater and they start asking themselves questions and find their own moral compass about what these characters have been doing.

Big things have small beginnings.

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.

The actors I looked up to when I was a teenager, they all just disappeared into different characters.

We moved to Ireland when I was two and we settled in Killarney, Co Kerry. Where we were living in Germany is very industrial and very grey and my parents wanted to have countryside around for my sister and I to grow up in.

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.

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.

Even if I'm playing a superhero, it has to be steeped in reality.

It's a difficult thing as an actor not to repeat one's self.

I love to go into a movie and have no idea what's going to happen in it.

For me, addiction comes down to basically where a pattern of behaviour has developed and that pattern of behaviour is becoming a very damaging cycle. It's sort of damaging your relationships, friends or lovers, it's damaging your own personal health and it's damaging for you and your workplace.

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?

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.