Michael Fassbender, the star of the NC-17 rated indie film Shame, is featured on the cover of the new issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. This new issue is dubbed the Indie issue so, naturally, they needed a HOT indie star to grace the cover. But, while many folks may have not yet seen Fassbender in Shame, they likely know him from his work in last Summer’s X-Men: First Class and will deffo get to know him in the upcoming Ridley Scott film Prometheus. Click below to see sexy Fassy on the cover of The Hollywood Reporter and read some excerpts form his coverstory feature.

In just two short years, the 34-year-old has established himself as one of the most versatile, admired and in-demand actors in Hollywood. The Hollywood Reporter’s senior film reporter Pamela McClintock caught Fassbender as he stands poised on the cusp of superstardom (he’s next up in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus) and takes a deeper look at what keeps the indefatigable leading man perpetually looking for new challenges Some of the revelations from the hot actor in THR’s cover story:

FASSBENDER’S CURE TO OVERWORK — SKYDIVING:
After shooting and promoting six movies in 20 months, and receiving a Venice Film Festival best actor award and a Golden Globe nomination, Fassbender slipped away to the Hawaiian island of Oahu in January. Following that relentless schedule and his first real introduction to fame in 2011, Hollywoods new “It” actor could have collapsed stone-cold. Instead, the motorcycle enthusiast (he currently rides a BMW 1200 GS Adventure) did what any amateur adrenaline junkie might do on vacation: He jumped out of a plane high over the island. “It was the most amazing rush,” recalls Fassbender. “I was strapped to the instructor, who was behind me. For 50 seconds, you’re free-falling, and your brain is saying, What are you doing? Once the canopy opens, he unhooks certain things and you drop down a bit. It’s a crazy feeling to jump out of an airplane and land on the ground.”

ON GOING NUDE, MEETING SEX ADDICTS AND USING YOU TUBE TO HONE HIS CRAFT:
Fassbender says what attracted him to the role of Brandon, a sex addict in indie drama Shame, was the chance to explore the desperate search for connection; playing a young Jung in A Dangerous Method allowed him to morph into a historical character. “I was a bit worried that I’d perhaps bitten off more than I could chew,” he says. “But 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.” Jeremy Thomas, a producer on Dangerous Method, says Fassbender who was director David Cronenberg’s first choice to play Jung read the script over and over again, even during production, something Thomas has never seen an actor do. “It’s one of his secret weapons,” he says. Fassbender says he’s grown deft at using YouTube to study accents (his own is Irish) or to watch a grainy interview with an elderly Jung. For Shame, he met with recovering sex addicts: “One man had the same intimacy issues that Brandon had, so it was very helpful to me, and I was very grateful that he opened up.” Additionally, he says there was no time to feel too self-conscious when shooting Shame, says Fassbender. It helped that director Steve McQueen kept the set intimate. “We moved very fast. We shot it in 25 days, so I kind of had to get over it and get on with it,” he says.

FASSENDER REVEALS NEW X-MEN DETAILS
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The actor says he’s confident that Fox will make a follow up to Matthew Vaughn’s critically acclaimed origins pic X-Men: First Class, in which he played a young Magneto. “I’m very proud that were able to pare it down and make it about relationships and the characters. The action sequences were there to support those relationships, as opposed to the other way around.

THE ACTOR ONCE LIVED WITH REJECTION, A HOLE IN HIS WINDOW:
The son of two restaurant owners, Fassbender moved to London at 19 and attended the Drama Centre. “It took me a while to come to grips with how expensive London was. My parents helped me out, but we never had a lot of money,” he says. “So it was very sticky the first three or four years between paying drama school fees and surviving. The first place I lived was a studio I shared with a Brazilian girl. We weren’t seeing each other or anything, but I remember there was a big hole in the window and it was so cold in the winter.” Fassbender’s first acting role of note was in HBO’s Band of Brothers, which aired in 2001. He was confident it would lead to other offers. It didn’t. “I came to Los Angeles and did auditions for television. I made a terrible mess of most of them and I was quite intimidated,” he recalls. “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. “Between roles including a Guinness commercial (in which his character swims from Ireland to New York) and a one-off, Agatha Christie’s Poirot, he took odd jobs to survive, unloading trucks or bartending. He even did market research. “I had to call people who had filed complaints about the Royal Mail and see if they were happy with how their grievances were dealt with. Most of the time they weren’t,” he says. All along, he says, “My goal was for acting to become my main income. I would say to myself, ‘I’m good enough.’ That became my mantra.”

I’m a new Fassbender fan, I gotta say, but I was hugely impressed with his talent when I saw X-Men last Summer and was even MORE impressed with his HUGE talent in Shame. He seems like such a likable guy … really down to Earth and nice. You may recall that we saw Fassbender on the cover of Interview magazine last week but I think he looks much hotter on the cover of THR this week. I’ve heard good things about the new film Haywire and now that I know that Michael Fassbender is in it, I think I’ll have to check it out. This is a great coverstory feature on a great new talent in Hollywood. Head over to THR‘s website HERE to read the full online version of his interview.

Any Fassy fans in the hiz? What do y’all think of this new feature?

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